The Fugitive
by gubernaculum
Summary: When a friend of Jack's turns up dead, the Torchwood team ends up with more than they bargained for.
1. Chapter 1

The two Torchwood agents strode through the tiled hallways of Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport. Doctor Miranda Ryan and Captain Jack Harkness had both decided to make this trip personally. Jack was still as silent as he'd been when he'd driven the SUV from Cardiff and Miranda, who'd known the immortal man for nearly a century, had left him to his solitude. They rode the service lift down to the morgue, again in silence, Miranda laying a comforting hand on Jack's shoulder outside the morgue doors.

"You sure you want to go inside, Jack? I can handle it myself," Miranda offered.

Jack shook his head, lifting her hand to his lips, kissing the back of it briefly. "I'm good, Will. You can take point."

Miranda nodded and smiled at the old nickname. She'd been using the name Wilhelmina Cho when Jack had met her back in 1919 and the man refused to call her anything else. Then again, Miranda realised Jack didn't even know her true name.

The two pushed their way through the swinging doors towards the attendant. With a bright smile and a confident look, she said, "Evening. We're here to take possession of a body."

The startled attendant looked up from his dinner. "I'm sorry you need-"

"Authority? We have that," Miranda said handing over the bogus paperwork. It would be flawless of course. Ianto Jones was nothing if not thorough.

"Heddlu Gwent?" the attendant said, scrutinising the paperwork. "Above my pay grade to argue. You parked by the doors?"

She nodded. "We'll take it from here. Just show us where he is."

"You sure? Corpses ain't exactly light."

"It's fine," Miranda said and the two of them followed the attendant into the morgue's cold storage. The body they needed was laying conveniently on one of the gurneys. Jack strode over and opened the bag. Miranda saw the brief flicker of pain across the immortal's face before he sealed the bag back up.

"They were about to autopsy," the attendant said, reading the tag affixed to the bag's zipper.

Jack and Miranda shared a knowing glance and Miranda said brightly, "Our jurisdiction now. Thanks for your help!"

Her and Jack seized the gurney, wheeling it out of the morgue and down the hallway towards the lift. Jack hit the button with his elbow. The attendant came jogging down the hall. "Wait! I need you to sign!"

Miranda took the clipboard from him and signed a random name. "There you go."

The attendant offered again to help them but they politely refused. The two immortals took the lift up one floor and wheeled the body out the side door they had parked next to. Jack folded the back seats down and helped Miranda slide the body bag into the SUV's boot, handling the body with care.

The drive back to Cardiff didn't take long and again, the two took the drive in silence. By the time they'd arrived back at the Hub, it was late and had just gone nine. Joseph Fischer, or Fish as everyone affectionately called him, was waiting for them in the Hub's garage with the gurney. The Torchwood technician had a solemn look on his face.

He pushed the gurney forward and laid a comforting hand on Jack's shoulder as the immortal man got out of the SUV. "I'm sorry about your friend, Jack."

"He had a good long life here. I just wish I could have sent him home."

"When did he crash, Jack? Was it '72? or '71?" Miranda asked.

"Neither. It was 1970," Jack said as he carefully slid the body bag from the SUV and arranged it on the gurney.

Fish started to wheel the gurney away. "Autopsy table, Evie?"

"Yes, thanks, Fish," Miranda said smiling as Fish used his own nickname for her. When the two of them had met in 1995 she'd been using the name Evelyn Wei.

Once Fish was out of ear shot, Miranda stepped over to Jack who was watching the gurney as it disappeared down the hall.

"I'll be respectful, Jack," she said softly. "Are there any religious or cultural restrictions you're aware of?"

"None that Max ever mentioned to me. He joined the Episcopal church soon after he crashed here. I thought it was to fit in better but he really believed, kept trying to get me to go to church with him," Jack said shaking his head. "I'm gonna miss him."

"I don't see any harm in allowing him a church burial," Miranda said softly. "I'll speak with his step-daughter. Have you talked to Ruby?"

"Yeah… she's hanging in there…" Jack sighed. "Yan and I still need to pack up his house."

"Leave it for tomorrow," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder and immediately felt Jack cover it with his own.

Jack nodded and took a shaky breath. "We are. I'm going to go get some air."

And in a swirl of greatcoat, he was gone. Miranda knew he was headed up to the roof. With a heavy sigh she headed for the autopsy bay. Normally a simple xenopsy like this could wait but Miranda wanted to get this one over with. Max had been her friend as well as Jack's. It was better for everyone if this was settled away quickly.

There were less than half a dozen resident aliens and other riftugees living among humanity. It was very seldom did the rift deliver aliens or humans alive and uninjured. The assimilation process was also extremely difficult. Suicides were not uncommon. Those who integrated into society were strictly watched by the Torchwood team, being checked on monthly by the staff, usually Jack or sometimes Ianto. When they died, they were treated like Torchwood's own, their bodies interred in a morgue drawer and their possessions packed away and placed in Torchwood storage.

Max Evans was an alien who had crash landed in Cardiff bay. His small one person ship had been badly damaged by an asteroid and Max had limped through space. He'd manoeuvered his way to Earth because he'd had no other choice. His hull had been compromised and his navigational systems had malfunctioned. When his ship had crashed into the bay, it had been a small miracle that he'd even survived. It didn't happen often that an alien crashed landed on Earth like Max, someone who was willing and able to integrate into human society but when it happened, they tried their hardest to make it work.

Torchwood had taken care of everything. Max's species was humanoid and the blue swirling markings on his skin could easily be dismissed as tattoos and hidden by clothing or make-up. They'd provided Max with a new identity, a temporary place to live and had helped him find work. They'd taught him about human society and to speak English. All in all, Max Evans had integrated well into humanity with Jack's help. The immortal man had taken a personal interest in Max and the two had been close. Unlike the monthly visits to the other resident aliens, Jack's visits to Max had been social, the two sharing a meal and playing chess. By the time Miranda had met Max in 1977, he had his own business, a successful appliance repair shop and was living in a modest home in the suburbs of Cardiff. He even had a girlfriend.

She'd had been invited to the wedding, of course. The entire Torchwood team had been invited. It was a small affair and Jack, who had stood as best man, had been happy for his friend. The marriage had ended in divorce in the 90's but Max still kept in contact with his step-daughter. That was where Max had been, visiting her in Newport, when it seems he'd had a heart attack and died. The minute Max's information had been entered into the hospital's system, Torchwood's software had caught it.

Miranda had gotten to know the alien over the course of her on and off tenure with Torchwood. She hadn't been as close to Max as Jack had but after learning of Max's love for the game of chess, Miranda had taught the alien to play go. He hadn't taken to it as well as chess but if Jack was unable to make his monthly visit, Miranda would go in his place and the two would play the ancient Chinese game.

With a sigh, she walked down the stairs. Fish had removed the body from the bag and had left it on the autopsy table and Ianto was laying out her usual instruments. He looked over his shoulder at her.

"Hey, Mandy. Gwen and Fish have gone home. Is Jack on the roof?" Ianto asked.

She nodded. "He'll be fine, Ifan."

Ianto nodded, knowing he should leave his lover to his thoughts for now. "The hospital records said it was a heart attack."

Miranda shook her head. "Max's species has a different cardiac configuration than ours. Likely, the A&E staff killed him without realising it."

"How do you reckon?" Ianto asked.

"I did a full work up on Max back in 1977. His heart's electrical system is completely different from ours. When the A&E staff hooked him up to an ECG, the readout would have looked like he'd had a severe myocardial infarction, a heart attack. I didn't know much about Max's physiology but I figured out enough to know that the anticoagulants and vasodilators they would have given as treatment would have killed him instantly."

Ianto looked down at the man's body with sadness. It was always a risk when they tried to introduce aliens into human society. The good intentions of doctors and nurses could often spell disaster or death as medical staff attempted to administer medications and perform procedures incompatible with their species. Miranda was Torchwood's medic but she also served as regular physician for every resident alien.

"Don't be distressed, Ifan. I think Max was sick already. Jack said he'd lost some weight when he'd visited last and, for some evolutionary reason I can't fathom, the Nepanthian digestive system is attached to the circulatory system. The weight loss could have been a sign of early cardiovascular disease," she said as she changed into a pair of scrubs. "Would it have been better if he'd come here instead?"

Miranda shook her head. "Probably not. I don't know enough about his physiology or anatomy to properly treat him. I'll know more after the xenopsy."

"Why do you always call it a xenopsy?" Ianto asked, curious. The immortal woman had always referred to it as such but he'd never known why nor had he asked before.

"The word 'autopsy' is derived from Ancient Greek, autos or 'oneself'. It's why the word 'necropsy' is used to describe dissection of non-human bodies. Max isn't human, he's Nepanthian, hence 'xenopsy'."

"Learn something new everyday…" Ianto laughed. "Let me know if you need anything else, Mandy. I'm going to go check on Jack."


	2. Chapter 2

"Tread carefully, people. This is the life of Max Evans. He wasn't one of us but I want this done with respect," Jack had said firmly when he'd opened Max's front door.

He hadn't wanted anyone else here besides Ianto. He'd wanted to quietly box away Max's life without an audience. Jack hadn't wanted anyone to know how much the old alien had meant to him even though he knew that both Ianto and Miranda could tell that Max's death was hitting him hard. The monthly visits to Max had been something he'd looked forward to, someone he could talk to about the stars. As with everyone he met, Jack had known this day would come. The Nepanthians weren't a long lived species.

With Ianto's hand in his, he'd arrived at Max's house just outside of Cardiff. Rhys had left a small lorry parked out front. Jack had made regular visits to Max's house but he had only ever seen the kitchen and the lounge. The minute the two men set to work, it was clear that they'd bit off way more than they could chew. Max had been quite the pack rat. Every available cupboard was filled with items and the basement was near bursting. Once the two men had seen the scope of Max's possessions, they'd decided that help was required. They'd called the Hub for reinforcements and the rest of the team arrived barely an hour later to help.

They'd all been at the house for hours now and it looked like they were going to have to return several times. They'd located several boxes of items that were labeled for Ruby in Max's scrawly handwriting. Ianto and Jack were sitting with those boxes open in front of them on Max's sofa, scanner in hand. Fish and Gwen were in the kitchen. Gwen was cleaning out the fridge while Fish was boxing away anything that could be donated to charity, carefully scanning and examining each item to ensure there was nothing alien about anything.

Miranda was coming up the basement stairs, wiping her dusty hands on her trousers. "It's a disaster down there. That man has saved everything he's ever gotten a hold of since he arrived on this planet."

"You're telling me you don't have a lot of stuff, Evie?" Fish said with a chuckle as he wrapped a bowl in some packing paper.

"Probably the same amount as Max but I'm a hundred times older," Miranda said.

"Isn't that being a bit generous, Will?" Jack quipped from the sofa.

"You'll get there, young man. So, I say this with all possible respect, Jack. Fuck off," Miranda said and the rest of the team laughed. She started digging into her pocket, removing a pack of cigarettes. "I'm going to get some air, it's dusty down there."

"Breath of fresh air indeed!" Gwen teased. "When did you start smoking, Miranda?"

"1860," she said flatly and pushed her way into the backyard. She moved a respectable distance away from the back door so the second hand smoke wouldn't drift into the open window. She opened up the pack and lit one of the cigarettes, breathing deeply of the acrid smoke. It wasn't something she did often but smoking was something she had always enjoyed. Tobacco just wasn't the same these days. The brand she was smoking was American. Miranda had had it shipped across the Atlantic from the States.

As she smoked, she gazed around Max's yard. He certainly seemed to enjoy his back garden. The flower beds were weeded and well manicured. There was a small vegetable patch over in the corner. Curious, Miranda wandered over to see what Max had been growing. It was a poor spot for a vegetable patch, under the shade of a tree.

There were a few tomato plants but it was still too early in the season for any fruit. One of the plants was dead. With the cigarette between her lips, Miranda crouched down to rip it out. It pulled from the soil easily but it was still tied to its stake. Miranda took a blade from her belt and started to cut the ties. She momentarily lost her balance and put down the flat of her hand onto the ground to steady herself. The moment her hand touched the soil, two huge metal spikes attached to metal cables sprang from the moist dirt.

One shot straight up, impaling itself into the branch above. The other passed straight through Miranda's shoulder as she screamed. The force of the impact flung her backwards, the spike passing through her and imbedding itself into the tree's trunk with Miranda's back flush up against the bark, her feet barely touching the ground. The rest of the team, hearing the scream, ran into the backyard.

"Evie!" Fish shouted and was about to run for Miranda when Jack stopped him.

"Stay back! All of you!" she shouted against the pain.

The rumble turned into a roar and the whole ground began to shake. The team all looked around trying to discover the source of the noise. Suddenly, the vegetable garden sank as if being sucked down from below. A large cylinder, big enough to hold a grown man, thrust up from the ground attached to the two cables and Miranda screamed in pain as the cable shifted. The whole team drew their guns. The cylinder rotated and then opened. It was empty.

Jack stepped forward to investigate. He leaned into the cylinder, looking up and then down. "All clear!"

"What is it Jack?" Fish called out.

"Looks like an escape pod or a short range manned probe…"

"And Max buried it in his back garden?" Gwen asked.

"I thought maybe it was Silurian but it's similar to what Max crashed in. It looks Nepanthian," Jack said running his hands along the sides.

"Hello?" Miranda shouted through clenched teeth, both of her hands were wrapped around the cable. "Me first!"

"Oh, sorry, Will," Jack said. He stepped back to take stock of Miranda's situation. "We're not going to be able to cut that. Can you move forward?"

"You're going to have to pull me," Miranda said through clenched teeth.

The rest of the team started to move towards them to help but Jack and Miranda shouted simultaneously, "NO!"

Panting from the pain Miranda said, "Stay back, we don't know if it's safe. Let Jack get me free first."

The two immortals focused on the task at hand. They looked at the textured cable and then each other.

Jack wrapped his hands around Miranda's biceps. "Ready?"

"Wait, Jack," she said and then dropped her voice so the others wouldn't hear her. "It would take me ten or fifteen minutes to revive from a close range headshot from your Webley. Once I'm dead you could cut me free."

He hardened his face. "I can't do that, Will."

"You've shot me before," she said, gritting her teeth. The sweat that had started to pop up on her brow from the pain was now trickling down.

"That's not it," he said, giving her a pleading look and then kissed her forhead.

Despite the disaster that had been their marriage back in the 1920's and the fact that the two of them were no longer romantically involved, Jack and Miranda still loved each other. Jack had shot Miranda before out of necessity but Jack had just lost a good friend and Miranda could tell he didn't want to watch her die by his hand, no matter how temporary he knew that it would be. Even though shooting Miranda would mean she'd feel no pain, cutting her free would be a gruesome task. The cable had impacted a few centimetres below the middle of her right collarbone. Miranda could already tell from the tightening in the right side of her chest and the pain when she breathed that the cable had pierced her lung.

"Okay, Jack. We'll do this your way," she said, wrapping her own hands around Jack's arms in return. "I love you."

"Love you too," he said softly. He steeled his expression and started to count. "On three… one… two… three!"

He heaved Miranda forward and she slid along the cable with a blood curdling scream.

"Stop, Jack… Stop!" she said with a sob. She was panting, sweat pouring off her, her shoulders shaking from the pain. She started to cough, Jack saw blood spattering her lips.

"Can you stand?" he asked, looking down. Her feet were barely touching the ground and they'd barely moved her away from the tree.

"No," she said weakly. "Maybe some pain killers? The kit… in the SUV."

"I'll be right back okay?" Jack said, cupping Miranda's face.

Miranda let out another yelp of pain when Jack let go, the pressure on her wound increasing without his support. Jack dashed passed the rest of the team and into the house. The others, unable to stand idly by any longer, rushed forward to Miranda's side despite her weak protests. Fish and Ianto put themselves under her arms, lifting her up to take the pressure off of her wound.

Fish smoothed back her sweat soaked hair. "Hang in there, Evie."

It only took Jack a few minutes to gather the medical kit from the SUV. He didn't utter a word when he saw the rest of the team crowded around Miranda. Jack opened the kit and found the correct syringe. He buried the needle in Miranda's thigh and then blasted the contents into the muscle.

"Better?" he asked.

"Give it a few minutes," she said.

Over the next couple of minutes, Miranda's breathing became a little less ragged and her shoulders stopped trembling.

"It's a little better now, Jack. You can try again," she said, closing her eyes to brace herself.

"Okay, Fish, Yan? On three, I need you two to walk to me slowly and together? Got it? One… two… three!"

Miranda let out another blood curdling scream as Fish and Ianto slid her along the cable. This time they were more successful and Miranda was now far enough away from the tree that they could evaluate the situation more clearly.

Gwen and Jack were looking at where the spike had entered the trunk.

"It's not in deep. We could pry it loose," Gwen said, peering at the spike.

"Will? You have your knife?" Jack asked.

"Left boot," she said, her voice strained.

Carefully, Jack lifted Miranda's trouser leg. He took the buck knife from her ankle strap and then went back to the tree. He dug the point of the knife into the wood next to the spike and twisted as his other hand pulled on the cable. It took him a few minutes but he was able to eventually dig the spike out of the bark. The tension on the cable released, Miranda sagged into Fish's arms.

"Easy, Evie… I've got you," he said as he lowered her onto her knees. "We've got to get that out of you."

"Ifan? The minute the cable is out I need you to press down hard on the exit wound. Try to form as tight a seal as you can. It's punctured my lung. I'll heal faster if I don't end up with a pneumothorax."

Fish looked at Ianto and then Miranda. She sucked in a deep breath, holding it and the nodded to Fish. He grabbed the cable simultaneously planting his foot on her shoulder and yanked sharply, dislodging the cable. Miranda's eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her head thrown back and her face twisted in agony. Fish was amazed she didn't scream again. Ianto's hand pressed into her back.

Miranda turned her head and saw blood trickling between her fingers as she clutched at the wound, her shoulders trembling with pain. She sat holding her breath, waiting for the wound to heal. When she couldn't hold her breath any longer, she dropped her hand and then took in a testing breath. When no air bubbled out of the wound, she nodded to Ianto who let go of her back.

"You okay, Will?" Jack said leaning down to help her up.

"We're bloody well lucky it was just me out here having a fag!" Miranda shouted angrily at Jack, waving her hand at the mortal members of the team. "Did you know about this?"

"No! Of course not!" Jack shouted back but he could tell she was so angry that it went in one ear and out the other.

"I know you let Max keep some personal items that were in his ship but this is a bit much don't you think?"

"Why are you always so quick to blame me, Will?" Jack said hotly.

"Because, Jack, sometimes you don't think ahead with cases like this," Miranda stabbed an accusatory finger at Jack's chest.

"I would never knowingly endanger the team!"

"It's the 'unknowingly' that's the problem here!"

"I made exceptions for a man who could never go home again!" Jack said, his temper rising. As usually when the two of them argued, Jack was reminded vividly of their disastrous marriage. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the rest of the team shifting about, Gwen and Fish uncomfortable witnessing the domestic and Ianto barely restraining impatient annoyance.

"Listen, Jack-"

"No, you listen!" he snapped and then bent down, pushing his face into Miranda's and pointing at the cylinder. "That isn't Max's ship. Max's ship is back at the Hub in the archives where it belongs. That is something else."

Miranda narrowed her eyes at him and fell silent. Jack knew he had won the argument.

Jack turned to the rest of the team. "Gwen? Go call Rhys. We're going to need Harwood's to do us a favor again. We're going to need another lorry for this thing. We need to get it back to the Hub and compare it to Max's ship."


	3. Chapter 3

"Easy there!" Rhys said as he and Fish rolled the cylinder out of the lorry and onto the forklift.

"Thanks mate, I'll take it from here," Fish said as he clapped his friend on the shoulder.

"You be careful, Joe," Rhys said with a smile. "Hey, you coming out tomorrow? Gwenie has that friend of hers she wants you to meet."

"I don't know, Rhys. This is going to be time consuming," Fish said patting the cylinder as he strapped in onto the forklift.

"Well, if you can. You deserve a break. You lot work too hard," Rhys said waving to Fish from the lorry as he drove off.

Fish waved back and sighed. Gwen had been trying to set him up with this friend of hers for over two months now. It actually wasn't a friend of Gwen's, more a friend of a friend. It wasn't that he didn't want to meet her it was just that he had a disastrous track record with women.

He got out and inserted his access key into the appropriate level and then entered his passcode. As the lift descended, he climbed back onto the driver's platform and waited. It took a while for the lift to reach the proper floor. The oversized items room was a massive section of the Hub, the entire bottom most level. Fish pinched his nose shut and blew to pop his ears as the lift continued to descend.

When the lift doors opened, he carefully drove the forklift over to the right side of the massive room, the sound of the forklift echoing through the cavernous space.

"Fish? That you?"

"Yeah, it's me, Ianto!" Fish shouted over the sound of the forklift's engine.

The archivist walked over to his friend, the heels of his dress shoes echoing. He put the file he was holding onto the table, it was a printout of index numbers. "I haven't been able to find Max's ship yet. Want a hand with this?"

Fish was looking at the cylinder, trying to decide which way was best to examine it. "Yeah. I think it would be best if I examined it upright, the way we found it."

"I'll get the magnaclamps," Ianto said as he walked away.

While Fish waited for Ianto to return, he flipped through the index list. It was largely gibberish to him. Ianto and Miranda seemed to be the only two people who understood the complex alpha-numeric system completely. He looked through the list twice and didn't see anything that could remotely be the vessel Max crashed in. Just as Fish gave up and dropped the papers back onto the table, Ianto returned carrying the magnaclamp.

"Remind me what these things do again?" Fish asked as Ianto handed him the clamp.

"Cancels the mass of whatever they're attached to," Ianto said. "Just hit the button on the end."

"You know that's against the laws of physics right?"

Ianto laughed. "You do realise our boss is an immortal time traveller from the fifty first century?"

"You're the one shagging him, mate," Fish said with a laugh as he attached the clamp to the cylinder and hit the button. With ease, he manoeuvered it off of the forklift so that it was standing upright in front of the table.

"Well, that's that," Fish said, standing back, admiring his handiwork. "You want me to help you look for Max's ship?"

"No thanks. I'm sure it's in here somewhere," Ianto said gesturing at the cavernous room.

Fish ran his hands over the outside of the cylinder. "It's strange, isn't it? If this isn't Max's ship why would he bury this one in his backyard? Did it crash too? Wouldn't it have been his ticket home?"

"I don't think anything about it makes sense," Ianto said, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe it buried itself in his backyard?"

"Now there's a thought…" Fish said as he circled the cylinder. "Quite possible given the fact that these cables seem to be the main vehicle for it to unbury itself… 'The true mystery of the world is the visible…'"

Ianto smiled at the sight of Fish in full on genius mode. The technician was tuning his presence out as the wheels in his head continued turn. He felt a twinge of grief, it reminded him of Toshiko. "Can I bring you some coffee, Fish?"

"Hmm? Yeah, mate, that'd be great, thanks," Fish said examining the cables. "Hey, is Jack okay?"

"It's rough on him when he loses people. But he'll be fine."

Ianto's tone was deceivingly light. There was no way the young Welshman wasn't worried about his lover. In fact, both men had looked strained lately. The rift had been ruthless over the past few months and Fish knew that Jack, Ianto and Miranda bore the brunt of that since the three of them lived at the Hub.

"Can I say something, Ianto?" Fish asked.

"Sure, Fish," Ianto said, giving his teammate a confused look.

"I know it's not my place but, you and Jack? When all this is squared away, you two should really take a holiday together." Fish had never known either man to take any significant time off together. He'd been with Torchwood for a year and had only seen the two of them share stolen evenings and the occasional quiet lunch.

Ianto gave him an indulgent smile. "We'll think about it, Fish."

"I'm serious, mate," Fish said sternly. "Gwen and Rhys get their time together. They had that holiday in Bath. You two need time alone. Get away from all this. Gwen, Evie and I? We can hold down the fort for a week or two. We'd all be happy to."

"I appreciate the concern, Fish but Jack and I are fine," he said starting to sound a little impatient.

"I'm not Gwen, mate. I didn't make the suggestion because I'm trying to meddle or because I think there's something wrong, which for the record I don't," Fish said gently. "The both of you are always at the Hub taking the night shift and the evenings. You deserve some special time to yourselves."

"Would it make me sound too much of a girl, if I said the time I spend with Jack is already special even if it's at the Hub?" Ianto said with a laugh.

Fish laughed too. "Yeah, mate, it would."

The sound of their joint laughter echoed through the room for some time.


	4. Chapter 4

Ianto carefully arranged Jack's favorite flaky pastry on a plate next to a few strawberries. He poured coffee into Jack's favorite blue and white stripped mug then arranged everything on the silver tray. Ianto had hoped him and Jack would have the Hub to themselves early tonight but Fish was burning the midnight oil. The Torchwood technician was still bent over his workstation. He'd been muttering something about an intermittent anomalous reading for most of the day.

Ianto had dismissed the Australian's earlier suggestion about a holiday out of hand but the idea had been growing on him. At first, Ianto's only concern had been Jack. His lover had been brooding a great deal since Max's death and maybe some time away was exactly what the immortal man needed. But the more Ianto thought about a possible destination, the more the idea of getting some time alone with Jack without Torchwood or the rift's interference appealed to him. _Somewhere warm… Spain? Italy? _Ianto wondered as he poured another mug of coffee for himself and set it on the tray. He left the tray on the Hub's kitchen counter and walked over to Fish.

"Fish? There's a fresh pot on in the kitchen. Can I get you anything else?"

"Nah, I'm good, mate, thanks," Fish said with a smile.

"Can you do me a favor when you get a chance?" Ianto asked.

"Sure."

"I need a printout of the rift spike predictions for the next six months," Ianto said, trying to sound innocent about it.

"You know the program becomes exponentially inaccurate the further into the future we try to predict, right? Month five and six will be way off."

"I know, I just wanted to take a look. No rush."

"Sure, Ianto," Fish said, grinning broadly. "You know, I hear Greece is quite lovely in the summer."

Ianto blushed a little and smiled. "Thanks Fish, I'll see you tomorrow." "Night, Ianto!" Fish said as Ianto retreated towards the Hub's kitchen.

Out of the corner of his eye, Fish saw Ianto walking towards Jack's office, his silver tray held high in one hand, a can of whipped cream in the other. Fish chuckled and shook his head. Gwen, ever the gossip, had filled him in shortly after he'd joined the team. He knew that Ianto had had girlfriends before Jack and, from what Gwen had told him, Fish felt it was safe to assume that Jack was Ianto's first male lover.

He didn't have a problem with same sex relationships but Fish often wondered what someone like Ianto Jones saw in someone like Jack Harkness. The two men seemed polar opposites in every respect. _Complimentary_ was what his mother had called it. Still, the two seemed happy and Fish had meant what he'd said down in the oversized items room and he truly wished that Ianto and Jack would find time to get away. He was overjoyed that Ianto was seriously looking into it. The two men deserved time alone together. Fish found himself indulging in a bit of jealousy over their happiness. You'd have to be blind not to notice the way the two men looked at each other. He'd never seen two people so in love before. _Maybe I'm playing for the wrong team…_

Fish turned his attention back to the program in front of him. He'd first noticed it this morning on the rift monitor, an odd double spike that resembled a mini mountain range on the readout. But the energy behind it wasn't rift related, it was something else. The reading had appeared at regular intervals all day. Jack had said it was nothing to worry about given how small the reading was but something about it didn't sit right with Fish and he'd been trying to narrow down the source all day.

He sat up and looked towards Jack's office. He could have sworn he heard the sound of laughter but he was alone in the main Hub. Gwen had gone home early in the afternoon, headed for a much dreaded dinner at her in-law's. She'd left a clear message with the rest of the team to call her in for absolutely anything. Miranda had finished typing her report on Max's xenopsy a few hours ago and was in her own rooms in the north sub-basement.

After making a few more adjustments to his program, Fish stifled a yawn. He looked down at his watch. It was nearly midnight. Ianto had vanished into the bunker nearly an hour ago. Fish turned his thoughts to the coffee that Ianto had left for him. It had been sitting on the burner for nearly an hour now and was likely scorched. Fish shook his head at how spoiled the Welshman had made him when it came to coffee. He decided to have a cup of the scorched coffee anyway. He just wouldn't tell Ianto. The idea would scandalise the Welshman. Fish wandered over to the pot and poured himself a cup. Scorched coffee prepared by Ianto Jones was still better than fresh coffee from the coffee shop on the quay. With a yawn, he poured some sugar into the mug and stirred when he heard it again, the sound of laughter… male laughter. _Oh no…_

Fish stopped stirring his coffee and walked towards Jack's office as quietly as he could. He stopped short when the sound of a low moan reached his ears. The office door wasn't shut and Fish heard another moan, louder this time, coming from the office. Grimacing, he poked his head into the doorway and saw the bunker's hatch was open. The sounds of the two men making love were drifting up into the office and beginning to echo through the Hub, low moans and husky declarations of love.

Fish face flushed so deeply he thought his nose would burn off. There was no way he'd be able to shut the hatch without them noticing. Fish backed away and gently shut the office door, hoping to muffle the noise. He felt ashamed at having overheard even a small portion of their conversation, the whispers of lovers that should have been for the two men's ears alone. He tried to ignore the sounds as he finished fixing his coffee and then practically sprinted back to his workstation with the mug in hand, spilling a little of the coffee along the way in his haste. He breathed a sigh of relief that he was now far enough away from Jack's office that the sounds were easily ignored but the volume was steadily increasing. He wondered if he should put on some music but he didn't want Jack and Ianto to know that he could hear them and blasting Queensryche would certainly do that.

He managed to focus on his work for a little while longer, pleased the program had identified the type of energy signature. He was about to begin narrowing the source when the pornographic noises from the bunker reached a volume that Fish could no longer ignore. Gritting his teeth, Fish shifted in his chair and reached down to tug at his jeans that were now uncomfortably tight. His burgeoning erection reminding him of exactly how long it had been since he'd had sex.

His face still flushed, he dug into his bag for his headphones, groaning when he realised that Myfanwy had chewed his last pair and that he hadn't gotten a chance to buy new ones. _Bloody pigeon… _The pterodactyl had taken to stealing Fish's possessions lately and squirreling them away in her nest as chew toys. Last week, Myfanwy had snatched the fourth Game of Thrones novel off of his desk. Another item lost that he had yet to replace.

Fish's head snapped up as he heard a loud shout followed by the sound of Jack's voice. He glanced at his watch again. It was nearly one in the morning and Fish decided to set the program to seek the source of the signal and retreat with what was left of his dignity. The sounds of good sex continued to grow in volume as Fish collected his things trying to ignore the demands of harder and faster reaching his ears. Frustrated, in more ways than one, Fish headed for the cog wheel door just as the program beeped. He dropped his bag and ran back to his workstation, turning on the monitor. _Christ… it's here!_

The program had located the source of the signal, it was coming from within the Hub itself. Fish located the programs that his predecessor, Toshiko Sato, had invented and implemented them to gather more data about it. He also ran to the water tower and started fiddling with the equipment connected to the base, equipment that was also Tosh's invention. To anyone up on Roald Dahl Plass, the water tower seemed an architectural center piece but the structure actually held the rift manipulator and a number of other pieces of equipment. Fish immediately set the equipment to block the signal. Sure it could be harmless but he couldn't take that chance.

Fish sprinted towards Jack's office and opened the door. He didn't enter the room nor peer down into the bunker. To his relief, the erotic sounds that had been coming from the hatch had stopped.

He cleared his throat loudly and called out, "Jack? Ianto? Guys?"

It was nearly a full minute before Jack's head appeared in the hatch opening. His hair in disarray and his cheeks still flushed. "What's up, Fish?"

"That reading I showed you earlier, Jack? It's a signal that's coming from inside the Hub," Fish said, worried.

"From here?" Jack cried, pulling himself up out of the hatch and bolting into the main Hub with Fish on his heels.

"Did you pinpoint it?" Jack asked as the two men leaned over Fish's workstation to examine the readings.

"Yeah, it's coming from the bottom level. The oversized items room. I've got the dampeners on the water tower working."

"The cylinder?" Jack asked.

"I think so," Fish said as he sifted through some of his preliminary findings. "Looks like the signal's been going off ever since it speared Evie."

"I should have listened to you, Fish," Jack said.

Fish shook his head. "We still don't know what it is, Jack. It could be nothing."

Ianto was just emerging from Jack's office wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms. His feet were bare and he had some clothes in his hands. His hair was also in disarray, sticking up in different directions. He too had a healthy flush on his face. Fish saw a fresh love bite on the Welshman's neck in a spot that would normally be hidden by his shirt collar.

Ianto cleared his throat loudly and said, "Jack, maybe you should put something on?"

Fish turned and raked his eyes up and down Jack's body. He'd been so distracted, he hadn't realised that Jack was nude. He swallowed convulsively at the sight and then tore his eyes away. He had always considered himself unwaveringly straight but Torchwood and Jack Harkness had a way of altering one's perspectives and perceptions. _There's not being into men, Fish… and then there's Jack Harkness, _was what Miranda had said to him just after he'd joined Torchwood.

Ianto stepped between his lover and Fish, blocking Jack from view. Fish wondered if it was an unconscious move. Ianto squinted his eyes at the display and said, "Odd. It's such a low powered signal."

"I was wondering about that too. It's low powered but it's very focused. It's not transmitting anything, just a single blip."

"Maybe a homing signal?" Jack said, now dressed, stepped in closer.

"Maybe, yeah," Fish said, tapping away at the program. "I've got Toshiko's programs running, they'll let me know more in a few hours."

"Could Max have been calling for help?" Ianto asked. "This ship crashes and he sets it up to send a signal?"

"ET phone home?" Fish offered.

"Plausible but where's the other pilot?" Jack put his hand to his forehead. "I don't know. None of this makes any sense. You're sure the signal is completely blocked now?"

"Absolutely, Jack," Fish said.

"Good, go home. We'll look at everything in the morning. On second thought," Jack said looking at the time on the computer, "I don't want to see you in before lunch."

"But-"

"You've got the signal blocked. The cylinder isn't going anywhere. Go home, get some sleep."


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning Jack and Fish were in the oversized items room examining the cylinder. Even though Jack had told him not to arrive before lunch, Fish had come in late at nine o'clock instead of his usual seven. The Captain had scowled at Fish but hadn't said anything. After collecting mugs of coffee, the two men had taken the lift down to examine the cylinder.

Fish had been waiting for Ianto to locate Max's ship before examining the cylinder more closely but the archivist had had no luck locating the one man vessel that Max had crashed in. With the discovery of the signal, examining the cylinder had become a higher priority. Ianto was still trying to locate the other vessel and, at Gwen's suggestion, was now combing though old Torchwood One files to see if perhaps the vessel had left Torchwood Three. Fish knew little to nothing about One, only that it had fallen in the Battle of Canary Wharf, of which Ianto was a survivor, and that Torchwood Three had scavenged the wreckage for what little they could recover. Fish could only imagine what a daunting task it would be for Ianto to find any trace of Max's ship among the piecemeal files.

At the moment, Jack was scanning the cylinder with his wrist strap and Fish was leaning against the large work table. As always, Jack had insisted he examine it first in case there was anything dangerous.

"It's definitely sending out some sort of homing signal. It's pinging at regular intervals," Jack said as he closed the strap.

The cylinder's sliding panel door was still open. The two cables that had flown out of the top were still draped loosely down the sides. Looking at it from the front there appeared to be nothing inside. The wall facing them was padded but there were no buttons or instruments or switches of any kind visible. Jack was circling the cylinder, examining the outer shell with his hands.

"By the way Fish, Ianto and I are sorry about last night. We didn't realise the hatch was open until you called down," Jack said.

Fish found himself blushing again. He had hoped the subject wouldn't be brought up. Ever. He cleared his throat and picked up a small spanner from his toolkit. He started tossing it nervously. "It's okay, Jack. I was… erm… paying attention to the program."

"You know that invitation still stands," Jack said nonchalantly as he climbed the small step ladder to look at the top of the cylinder.

The spanner hit the floor with a clatter and Fish took a deep breath to gain his composure back then bent to pick it up. Barely a month after he'd joined Torchwood, Jack and Ianto had invited him into their bed. It had been one of the most awkward moments of Fish's life. He'd politely refused, professing heterosexuality. That had been just over a year ago now and while Torchwood had certainly opened Joseph Fischer's eyes to new horizons, falling into bed with two other men was still something Fish wasn't about to do. He did have to admit that the initial invitation and his observations of Jack and Ianto's relationship as well as his own disastrous track record with women had piqued his curiosity. More and more, Fish wondered if he was missing out on something in life. And life at Torchwood was painfully short to be missing out on anything.

"Thanks, Jack. I'll think about it," Fish said, his voice surprisingly steady. Attempting to cover his embarrassment with humor he laughed and said, "The two of you may be too much for me though."

Jack chuckled as he climbed off the step ladder. "Just me then?"

Fish shook his head and then said, "Persistent aren't you?"

He winced a little at his own tone, the quip had come out a little harsher and slightly more sarcastic than Fish had intended. He saw the proverbial light go off over Jack's head. Jack's face scrunched with concern. "I'm making you uncomfortable aren't I?"

"A bit, yeah, Jack," Fish said honestly and then felt badly when he saw the remorse on Jack's face.

"I'm sorry, Fish. I forget when I am sometimes," Jack said seriously.

"It's all right, Jack," Fish said, still feeling badly. The last thing he wanted was for Jack to think him some sort of homophobe. "The minute you stop flirting with me is the minute I know the world's coming to an end."

Jack laughed. "The world's always ending."

"We better make the most of it then, eh?" Fish said with a smile.

"So is that a yes?" Jack said, flashing Fish his thousand watt smile.

Fish laughed and didn't answer, shaking his head a little but then his voice turned serious. "It's not as easy for me as it is for you, Jack."

Jack stopped his examination of the cylinder and stepped towards Fish, crossing his arms over his chest. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're from a different time, Jack. I don't expect you to understand," Fish said, turning around and dropping the spanner back into his toolkit.

"Understand what, Fish? I've been in this century a long time," Jack said a little annoyed. "You think I don't understand that you were raised to think that being a man falls within a rigid sphere of guidelines or that you were raised to think that getting on your knees in front of another man or taking it up the arse makes you weak?"

"Jack, I didn't mean it like that!" Fish said. "I meant that was raised with absolutes. Gay. Straight. And all my life I've sat on the mountain marked 'straight' and an excursion to another one just… just… it raises a lot of questions, a lot of uncertainties I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with yet."

"Like…?" Jack asked.

"Like do I reevaluate every failed relationship I've had with a woman over the entire course of my life and wonder if they all went tits up because I've been gay this whole time," he blurted without thinking.

"First off, Fish, stop looking at sex that way. It's narrow minded and very twentieth century. That's what's wrong with your quaint little categories. It prevents you from having to think. You slap a label on it so everything fits into a nice neat little package but love and sex are so much more complicated than that. You think it makes it easier but all it does is limit you," Jack said, his tone softening. "Just because you want to try something new doesn't mean you have to reexamine your entire life. If this winter you go snowboarding instead of skiing it doesn't mean you never liked skiing in the first place and that you'll never ski again. It just means there are different ways of falling off a mountain."

Without another word, Jack turned away from Fish and moved towards the cylinder and turned around. He stepped backwards into it, leaning against the padded wall. It was barely big enough for him as he looked around inside. "There are some buttons, a few switches in front of me… everything looks powered off though."

Fish didn't answer Jack, he was mentally filing away what Jack had said to him so he could think about it later. And he suspected he'd be thinking about it for a good long while. It was a few moments before Fish spoke.

"It looks like it was designed for a single occupant. Put your hands down, is there anything down by your sides?" he asked.

"Nothing. What a rough way to travel," he observed and then he looked down and saw a small tube rolling on the floor by his feet, something that wouldn't have been visible had he not stepped inside. He stepped out of the cylinder and bent down to pick it up.

"What's that?" Fish asked.

"Don't know," Jack said laying the tube onto the table. He turned it over in his hands, noting a cap on one end. He popped the cap off and two long cylinders fell out, attached to each other lengthwise.

"Looks like the ends of a scroll," Fish said.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Jack said as he pulled the two cylinders apart revealing a wide strip of clear plastic. Suddenly, a message sprang to life across the plastic, bright and vivid green. "We need to translate this."

"I'll get the program running straight away, Jack," Fish said as he picked up the tube the futuristic scroll had been in, turning it over in his fingers.

He saw a spot on the end. It was round and dark reddish brown. Fish felt his stomach bottom out a little. He pushed at the raised dot with his fingernail. It flaked. He turned the tube over and saw a few more spots and a smudge. Fish reached out and picked up the end cap and saw another smudge.

"Jack? I think this is blood," Fish said pointing at the tube.

"What?" Jack asked rolling the message back up and taking the tube from Fish's hands, examining it carefully.

Fish walked towards the large cylinder to examine it more carefully. "There's no blood inside here. It could have been cleaned. I wonder if that luminol they use in crime labs would work…" Fish wondered aloud.

Jack scowled a bit. "Fish? Let's get back upstairs. I don't think this ship is going to give us anything of value. This translation is now priority one and bag this tube."

The two men took the lift back up to the main Hub and Fish set to work on the translation after securing the tube in a Torchwood evidence bag.

Jack walked down into the autopsy bay where he heard Gwen and Miranda talking.

"Gwen? Cardiff's finest have any of those cadaver dogs?"

The two women looked up from their conversation and Gwen said, "Sure Jack, why?"

"I need one out at Max's house. Just the dog and its handler, no one else."

Miranda's face darkened. "Jack, what's going on?"

"I don't know, Will. But I have a bad feeling about this."


	6. Chapter 6

It had taken Gwen the rest of the morning to arrange for the cadaver dog. It was now early afternoon and Gwen, Miranda and Jack were standing on Max's patio, watching the dog handler lead the large German Shepherd through the backyard.

"Jack, Max couldn't hurt a fly. What the hell do you think we're going to find here?" Miranda asked, impatiently.

"I don't know, Will. That's why-" Jack broke off suddenly as the dog began pawing at one of the flower beds. He strode across the lawn and clapped his hand onto the dog handler's shoulder and said dismissively, "Thanks, that's all we needed."

The dog handler looked over at Gwen who nodded and waved him over to her. Miranda went to stand over by Jack who was looking down at the flower bed.

"Jack, what the fuck is going on?"

"We're digging," he said. He shrugged himself out of his greatcoat and tossed it over one of Max's plastic chairs.

Jack had a shovel in hand and was holding it out to her. She took it from him, her lips pressed into a thin line. "Fine, we do this right. Remove shallow layers of dirt in a step-wise fashion. If there is something under here, we don't want to damage it digging down randomly."

"Will, we don't have time-"

"Enough, Jack. You did the rest of this your way and now we do this mine. If there's a body under here we're going to remove it properly. Only take off a few centimetres of dirt at a time. If and when you hit anything other than a rock I want to know about it," Miranda snapped.

She turned around seeing that Gwen had managed to smooth things over with the dog handler and they both were leaving. She called out to her. "Gwen? Go through the garage and the basement. See if you can find any paint brushes. And let Fish and Ianto know that we're going to be out here a while."

It was tedious work. After they'd pulled up each plant and shrub, they began removing small layers of soil. Hours later, they'd gone down nearly a whole metre when Miranda's shovel impacted something soft, like cloth. From there they proceeded more gingerly, brushing away the dirt with the paintbrushes that Gwen had found in the basement.

After another few hours, the sun was dipping low on the horizon. The three of them stood gazing down at the clothed skeleton they'd excavated. Miranda looked to Jack for his permission and after he nodded, she took the dagger from her boot. She used the blade to slit the tunic up the front, uncovering the skeletonised torso.

Brushing away some dirt, Miranda spoke, detached, "The body isn't human. It's Nepanthian. A female"

"How can you tell that, Miranda?" Gwen asked, curious.

"The torso. Nepanthians only have five pairs of ribs. There's also no sternum which means the body is female."

Miranda took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, rolling her shoulders._ A Nepanthian pod in your vegetable garden and a Nepanthian corpse in your flower bed. Max what did you do?_

Gwen nodded. "She's been buried down here a long time. A whole metre of dirt? Clothed?"

"How long, Gwen?" Jack asked.

"Years," Gwen said and Miranda nodded in agreement.

"Narrow it down," he said.

"It's hard to say, Jack," Gwen said touching the soil. "What do you think Miranda? Five? Ten years?"

"At least. Could be longer. I'm betting the clothes aren't a natural fiber."

"No… She wasn't just tossed down here either, she was arranged carefully," she said with a shake of her head. "Remorse."

"How'd she die?" Jack asked, his voice stony.

"I don't know. It's nearly impossible to tell cause of death with skeletal remains," Miranda insisted.

"Try," he snapped.

"I'm not a forensic anthropologist, Jack. You want to know whether or not she was murdered? She's buried in someone's backyard," Miranda said, gesturing around her.

"Max's backyard," was his clipped reply.

Miranda sighed and tried to summon patience. Jack was upset and so was she. Whenever she'd visited the alien, he'd always been kind and polite. He'd worked hard to fit into human society but Miranda had gotten the feeling during her visits that Max used them as a chance to be more himself. Miranda had always found him an eccentric and funny little man with a remarkable intelligence. She never would have believed him capable of murder.

"Miranda? Take a look at this," Gwen said. While her two other teammates had been arguing, Gwen had been freeing more of the skeleton from the dirt. She had the skull in her hands. "Blunt force trauma?"

Miranda took the skull from Gwen, brushing at it more with the paintbrush. "Do you have a bottle of water, Gwen?"

Gwen handed over her water to Miranda who poured it down over the skull, washing away the rest of the dirt. The three of them crowded around.

"This is a depressed skull fracture with concentric fractures around it. It's a type of skull fracture most associated with blunt force trauma," Miranda said pointing at the circular cracks in the bone.

Jack didn't say anything, he just stood there, staring at the skeleton.

"It means someone hit her over the head," Miranda said simply.

"I know what it means," he snapped again. He turned to Gwen. "Did you get that stuff Fish mentioned?"

"The luminol? Yes. It's inside," Gwen said.

"Is that stuff going to work with Nepathian blood?" Jack asked, turning to Miranda.

"It should. The iron-"

"Yes or no, Will. I'll talk to Fish if I want a chemistry lesson," he snapped, cutting her off.

"Yes."

"We'll start in the kitchen. Spray that down first, Gwen. Let's put this body into a bag and get it into the SUV."

After loading the bones into a body bag, Jack hoisted Miranda and then Gwen up out of the grave. Miranda loaded the skeleton into the SUV's boot. She got back into the house just as Gwen was spraying the last of the luminol and shutting all the curtains.

"Turn on that light, Jack," Gwen said gesturing at the large black light.

There was nothing. The areas that Gwen had carefully sprayed were dark, even the floor. Miranda and Gwen both knew that didn't really mean anything. Max could have meticulously cleaned the room or the murder could have taken place so long ago that Max had remodeled the kitchen.

"Let's move to another room," Jack said.

Miranda switched the lights back on and took the spray bottle from Gwen handing it over to Jack. "Wait. Jack, you're the tallest. Spray the ceiling."

Once Jack had finished spraying the chemical, Gwen turned the kitchen lights back off. A single line of blood droplets arced across the ceiling.

"Projected blood spatter. It's a cast off pattern from the murder weapon," Gwen said as she looked upwards, examining the pattern.

"She was only struck once," Jack said, looking upwards, his expression hidden by the darkness.

Miranda heard the hopeful tone in Jack's voice. If Max was defending himself against a threat, a single blow could merely have been self defense but Miranda already knew what Gwen supplied.

"Twice," Gwen said, shaking her head. "A single blow won't leave blood evidence like this. It's raising the weapon for a second time that leaves the cast off pattern."

"Which is consistent with the two concentric fracture patterns on the skull," Miranda said, also looking up at the blue glow.

A single blow would have incapacitated Max's assailant. The second blow was meant to kill. None of it made any sense to Miranda. Why would Max murder another one of his people? Wouldn't he have seen it as a way home? Max had crashed here and, of course, he'd made the best of his situation but she'd heard from Jack about the Nepanthian's homesickness and other difficulties he had with assimilating into human society. The custody battle over Max's step-daughter had been fierce, his ex-wife using many of the alien's eccentricities against him to deny even simple visitation. Max had fought hard to remain a part of Ruby's life. Had this other Nepanthian come here to force Max home? But why? Could Max not bear to leave Ruby and her son, Ben behind?

The black light was turned off and the kitchen light turned back on. Jack was standing by the switch, his eyes hooded, his hands in his pockets. "Gwen? Tomorrow morning, I want you back here going through everything. Will? After you're done examining that skeleton, I want you here too. Let's get all this back to the Hub."


	7. Chapter 7

The three Torchwood agents piled into the SUV and started driving back towards the Hub. Miranda and Gwen threw a few nervous glances at each other and at Jack but both women remained silent. Gwen was in the front seat, looking out the window when something caught her attention. She shifted forward, peering up out of the windscreen.

"That's a strange shooting star," she said, pointing upwards.

Jack bent forward, leaning over the steering wheel and Miranda had planted her hand on the center console to steady herself as she, too, leaned to take a look. It was like no shooting star any of them had ever seen. Unlike other shooting stars that winked out quickly, this one persisted. It left a swirl of smoke in its wake and burned bright blue.

"It's headed straight down!" Gwen exclaimed.

Miranda's eyes widened it continued to fall and she saw its trajectory. "Goddess below, Jack! It's headed for the Plass, the Hub!"

She was thrown backwards as Jack slammed his foot down onto the pedal and the SUV lurched forwards. Miranda and Gwen both held on for dear life as Jack sped through Cardiff.

When the SUV neared the Plass, Gwen shouted out, "The invisible lift, Jack! It's faster!"

Jack hopped the kerb and drove the SUV up onto the Plass itself, coming to a halt with a squeal of tyres. A dozen metres from the invisible lift's paving stone, there was a hole in the Plass less than a metre wide and Jack parked the SUV over it, hiding the hole from view. The three of them drew their guns and piled onto the lift. Jack started the accelerated descent with his wrist strap and the stone plummeted into the Hub's depths not at its usual sight seeing pace but with stomach flipping velocity.

The second the lift came to a halt, all three crouched down, their guns raised. They looked around, trying to see if there was some threat, some attack but aside from the new skylight, the Hub appeared undamaged and empty. The intruder alert hadn't been triggered, only the perimeter alarms. His gun still drawn, Jack hopped off and ran to the east stairs towards the archives shouting for his lover.

"IANTO! IANTO!"

After disabling the perimeter alarm, Miranda looked around, Ianto and Fish were no where to be seen. She tried to see where whatever it was had fallen. When she turned her gaze upwards towards the hothouse, she saw a large metal cone imbedded point first in the far wall by the painted Welsh dragon.

"Gwen! Look!" she shouted pointing upwards and sprinting for the metal stairs with Gwen on her heels. The two women skidded to a halt in front of the painted dragon.

"Can you reach it?" Gwen asked.

"One way to find out," Miranda said. The cone didn't appear to be deeply imbedded into the concrete wall nor did there appear to be any structural damage. She hoisted herself up onto the railing, standing on the round metal.

"Careful, Miranda!" Gwen warned, grabbing a hold of the other woman's thighs. It was a long drop back down to the main Hub floor and Gwen had no desire to watch Miranda fall to her death, no matter how temporary that death would be.

Hooking the heels of her boots onto the railing, Miranda leaned forward and grabbed the metal cone. It was cool and smooth under her hands. It took her a few moments but she managed to pry it loose, a small shower of concrete falling into the water below.

"Pull me back, Gwen," she said, holding the cone against her chest.

Gwen dug her hand into Miranda's belt and pulled her back slowly. Miranda manoeuvered herself back onto the catwalk and then held the cone out in front of her.

"Well that isn't something you see everyday," Gwen said eyeing the cone suspiciously. It appeared to be completely undamaged from its fall to Earth. The point wasn't even blunted.

The two women walked back down to the main Hub and Miranda set the cone down onto Fish's work table. Gwen was crouched down, looking at the cone. She was careful not to touch it. Miranda was looking around the rest of the Hub wondering if she should join Jack in searching for Ianto and Fish but just as she was about to tap her ear piece, she caught sight of the three men coming up the east stairs.

"Thank the Gods you're both all right!" Miranda shouted with relief when she saw that both Ianto and Fish were unharmed.

"We were down in the oversized items room," Fish said. "Didn't hear a thing."

Fish's eyes widened as he bent down to look at the cone, simultaneously donning protective gloves. "Is this it? Wow! Not a scratch!"

Miranda looked over towards Jack and Ianto.

"Everything all right, Ifan?"

"I found out what happened to Max's ship," Ianto said. "Gwen was right. Torchwood One requested the ship be sent to them in 1976 even though it was non-functional. It wasn't among the items recovered after the Battle of Canary Wharf."

"Which means that One stripped it bare," Miranda said with a shake of her head. "If it's alien, it's ours."

Ianto nodded. "Yvonne Hartman wasn't in charge in the 70's but all of Torchwood One's prior directors had the same fanaticism."

"Why did you turn it over to them, Jack?" Miranda asked.

Jack shrugged. "I wasn't in charge back then, Will."

"Ifan, why don't you see about our new skylight?" Miranda said pointing upwards.

Ianto groaned and headed up towards the catwalk. Miranda turned around to find that Jack was bent over the cone with Fish.

"Any luck with that translation, Fish?" Jack asked.

"Toshiko's translation program is still running. It should have an answer for us by tomorrow morning," Fish said as he turned the cone over in his hands. He set it back down on the base. He took a small sample jar from his kit and a scraping tool. "C'mere gorgeous, let's dance…"

Miranda quirked an eyebrow at the lack of rude comment from Jack. The former Time Agent was just standing behind Fish, his arms crossed over his chest, watching Fish work. It was uncharacteristic of him. Jack never passed up the chance for sexual innuendo. Miranda chalked it up to the strain of the case.

Gwen let out a startled gasp as the cone opened in the same way the cylinder had back at Max's house, a small panel rotating out of the way.

"How did you do that?" Jack asked.

"Dunno! I just touched it with the scrapper!" Fish said backing away slowly to allow the two immortals to stand between the cone and him and Gwen.

"What is it with this species and geometric objects?" Fish asked as he saw Jack take another tube and small cube out of the cone.

When Jack opened up the tube, it contained the same sort of scroll as the first one they had found in the cylinder but with one difference. This one was in Welsh, very badly translated Welsh.

"Welsh? Why Welsh?" Jack asked.

"We are in Wales, Jack," Miranda said, rolling her eyes and taking the scroll from him and scanning it. "It's not translated well. It's an arrest warrant for Max."

"But Max is dead," Gwen said, reading over Miranda's shoulder, raising her eyebrows at the horrible translation.

"They don't seem to know that," Miranda said as she continued to read.

"More reasonable than some alien legal documents we've received," Jack muttered, turning the cube in his hands. "Remember that writ from the Palatinium Syndicate in '85, Will?"

"You mean the one that demanded we free all domesticated dogs from their unlawful and barbaric slavery?" Miranda said, rolling her eyes.

The cube suddenly rose up in mid-air, hanging there it started to glow bright blue. Jack pushed Gwen and Fish back as their curiosity brought them forward. "Woah, get back you two!"

"Torchwood answer," came a voice from the cube, the glowing at the edge of the cube intensifying and fading with each syllable spoken. It sounded faintly mechanical. Its Welsh accent was awful and Gwen flinched.

Miranda stepped forward and cleared her throat and said, in Welsh, "This is Torchwood. I am Doctor Miranda Ryan. Please be advised that Earth is a level five planet as classified by article fifty seven of the Shadow Proclamation. This world has not yet made first contact. To whom am I speaking? How may I address you?"

The cube let out a blast of static and unintelligible noise in response.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jack flip open his vortex manipulator and start tapping buttons. She rolled her eyes a little. Jack may have lived in Wales for over a hundred years but he'd never bothered to learn the language.

"My apologies, we appear to be having translation difficulties. To whom am I speaking and how may I address you?"

The cube let out another blast of static.

"We are still experiencing translation difficulties," Miranda said, frustrated.

"Nepanthian Orbiter Two designation." The cube glowed again and the mechanical voice spoke, "Shadow Proclamation classification is knowledge. Torchwood given correct for negotiate. No action taken future if compliance is done."

Whatever translation program the Nepathians were using was atrocious. The Welsh was barely understandable. Miranda pondered asking them to switch to English but didn't bother, figuring it probably wouldn't be much better.

Miranda spoke again, "We have received your warrant and we will respect your laws. The fugitive you seek is dead. Do you require confirmation?"

"We require," the voice droned.

"How may we provide you with confirmation?" Miranda asked, praying this would be as simple as showing them that Max was dead.

"Sight."

"They want to see the body," Miranda said, in English, picking up the cube and walking towards the autopsy bay. She descended the back stairs to the morgue as Gwen, Fish and Jack followed. Miranda had completed the autopsy but Ianto hadn't assigned Max a drawer as Miranda had wanted to respect his wishes and give him a proper church burial. She opened up the cold storage area and walked inside. Max's body was wrapped on a shelf. Miranda put the cube down next to the body.

Switching to Welsh, she spoke at the cube. "It is our custom to wrap the bodies of our dead. Can you see with this device? Do you need me to unwrap him?"

"We do not require," droned the mechanical voice. A flat beam of blue light emerged from the edge of the cube, scanning the room.

"Fugitive expiration confirmed. Investigator expiration confirmed," the mechanical voice said.

The whole Torchwood team turned. The other body bag with the skeletal remains was in the cold storage unit. They had forgotten and the cube's scanning beam had detected the body's presence.

"Torchwood will discover responsible being with investigator expiration."

Miranda sighed and turned to Jack. He gave a nod of permission and Miranda said, "Our evidence indicates that your fugitive is responsible for the investigator's death. We only recently discovered the body of your investigator."

The cube fell silent, the tension in the room was as thick as the cold.

"Do you think that's it then?" Gwen asked, shivering a little.

"I don't know, the cube is still glowing. We should act as if they can hear and understand us," Miranda said. "This could satisfy them and they could leave. Or this could only be the beginning."

Fish started to pace. He had been standing next to Jack, hearing the translation from his wrist strap.

"Christ, it's freezing in here. Could we move the cube back outside?" Fish asked, blowing into his hands.

Jack shook his head. "We don't know how much they can see with that thing. They could see that as deception."

He swung the cold storage door open wider and they all stepped out into the morgue, keeping an eye on the cube from the slightly warmer morgue. Jack tapped his ear piece and started to speak to Ianto in low tones. The young Welshman appeared almost ten minutes later carrying a tray of mugs.

"Jack's updated me, Mandy. I moved the SUV and put some caution tape around the hole up on the Plass and sealed it from the inside. We'll have to get the council to take care of it," Ianto said.

"Thanks, Ifan," she said, taking a mug of hot tea from the tray.

Just as the last of the mugs had been passed around, the cube glowed and spoke, "Torchwood responsible agent will return stolen item and expired investigator."

Ianto winced at the Welsh as Miranda stepped back into the cold storage unit.

"How may we return your investigator to you?" Miranda asked.

The cube rose off the shelf and glowed, another flat beam of light burst from the cube, this time coloured green. The bag containing the skeletal remains of the investigator vanished.

"Can you describe the stolen item to us?"

A blast of static and unintelligible words came through the cube.

Every single one of the Torchwood team rolled their eyes and Fish groaned, "It would figure wouldn't it?"

"Our apologies, there appears to be another translation problem. Can you describe the stolen item to us again, please?"

The same blast of static and nonsense came through the cube.

"We are still experiencing a problem with the translation. Can you describe the stolen item to us again, please?"

"Ours," droned the voice. "Torchwood will return ours in two days galactic standard. Orbiter out."

The cube fell silent and the glow went out.

"What's two galactic standard days, Jack?" Gwen asked.

"Thirty eight hours, roughly. Ianto? When will that be?" Jack asked his lover.

"Ten in the morning, day after tomorrow, Sir."

"That's not a lot of time," Fish said, worried.

"Alright everyone head to Max's house now. I want everything scanned. Try to be as quick and thorough as you can," Jack ordered and then turned from the cold storage room.

"Where are you going, Jack?" Ianto asked.

"To talk to Ruby."


	8. Chapter 8

It had taken Jack just over a half hour to drive to Ruby's house in Newport. He'd borrowed Ianto's car so that the rest of the team could use the SUV and promised that he'd return the Audi without a scratch. He rang the bell and waited, his arms across his chest and his chin down. His unannounced visit was late enough to be considered highly rude.

"Uncle Jack! Come in!" Ruby said brightly when she saw him standing at the doorway. She was wearing her dressing gown. She opened the door and waved him inside towards the kitchen.

"I'm sorry to come by so late, Ruby," he said sitting down at her kitchen table.

"You're always welcome here." She bustled about fixing him a mug of tea. "I don't have any coffee, sorry. Hungry? I could heat you something. I have those donuts you like?"

"No thanks, Ruby. I'm good."

"How's Alice? I keep meaning to get Ben and Steven together for a play date but you know how it is. I'm sorry Ben's not here, he's at his father's."

"Alice and Steven are fine," Jack said softly. "I need to talk about your Dad. I need to know everything he told you about himself, his people."

Jack saw her tense up.

"He never said much, Uncle Jack, you know that. He always said where a man came from didn't matter."

"It matters now, Ruby. Your Dad's people? They're here. They're looking for him."

"What? Why?" Ruby asked with disbelief as she set Jack's tea down in front of him.  
"It doesn't matter why, Ruby."

"It matters to me if they're trampling all over his memory. Do they want his body back? You and Auntie Mei-Mei said I could give him a church burial."

Jack sighed. Max had been the only father Ruby had ever known. The man may not have fathered her and may have been an alien, but Ruby worshiped him. The last thing Jack wanted to do was spoil the image Ruby had of her step-father but he had no choice. "They're saying he stole something. I don't know what it is but we need to give it back."

Ruby's eyes narrowed with anger. "I don't have anything alien here. Tad didn't have anything from his planet when he got here, the clothes on his back, a few other little things. You saw everything he had in his ship when he crashed."

"It might not look alien, Ruby. Anything he gave you over the years? Anything at all?"

"You and that team of yours are going through that mess of a house of his. Haven't you found anything?"

Frustrated, Ruby stood up. She tore open the cupboard and threw the teabags back into it, slamming the door shut.

"That's just it, Ruby. The house is a mess and we can't find it. We need help. Anything you saw growing up? Anything he was secretive about?"

"Tad was always secretive but there was never anything like that. He was a normal guy, Uncle Jack. The alien thing? It was like our own little private secret, our own special game. I didn't believe him when I grew up. I thought he'd gone barmy."

"You didn't notice anything? There wasn't an object he was protective of? Nothing he kept to himself?"

She leaned with her back against the counter and shook her head. "Nothing like that, Uncle Jack."

"What about anything he gave you? Was there something special? Something he didn't want you to show anyone? Something he want you to keep to yourself?"

"Everything he gave me was special," she snapped. "He never told me to hide anything."

Jack was dreading what he had to say next. "I'm sorry, Ruby. Anything you have that he gave you I'm going to need it. Max's people are holding us responsible to return whatever he took."

"He wouldn't have taken anything! There's nothing alien in my house! A few trinkets and knickknacks! There was some jewelry and a few bottles of perfume! Normal things he got in normal shops in Cardiff!" she railed at him, angry tears forming in her eyes.

"It doesn't matter, Ruby. I need to be sure. The Nepanthians are more technologically advanced than us. They could destroy the planet looking for it. We need to return whatever it is. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Fine. Take everything. Leave me nothing. I can't even go through his things. You're all boxing it up and packing it away like he was some sort of dirty little secret. Well he was my father and I loved him."

"I loved him too, Ruby," Jack said hotly. "He was my friend. I don't want to do this but I have to. I promise I'll give everything back."

It took Ruby nearly an hour to gather up everything her step-father had ever given her. Jack was miserable as he watched her. Max had known about his and Miranda's immortality and he'd made both immortals promise to watch over Ruby when he was gone and now he was causing her pain. This wan't how Jack wanted Ruby to remember her step-father. After she'd packed everything into the box, she thrust it into Jack's hands.

"There, that's everything."

"I'm sorry, Ruby."

"I don't give a shit that you're sorry, Uncle Jack. Just get out."

Jack loaded the box into the SUV as Ruby slammed the door. He drove back to the Hub with a heavy heart. It was well passed midnight by the time he got back to Cardiff. He left the box of items on Fish's work table and headed for his office to pour himself a stiff drink.

To his surprise, the bunker's hatch was open and the light was on. Instead of pouring himself a drink, he descended the ladder. Ianto was laying on their bed reading a book. He hadn't changed into his nightclothes, just gotten comfortable. His suit jacket and tie were hanging over the wardrobe door and his feet were bare. His cuffs were unbuttoned and rolled up, the top few buttons of his shirt were undone.

"I thought I told everyone to head to Max's."

"It's nearly one in the morning, Jack. Mandy sent everyone home to get some sleep. We're picking it back up first thing. I just got here. I've been waiting for you."

Jack sat down heavily on his side of the bed and started to unlace his boots.

Ianto saw the tight set of Jack's shoulders and knew something was wrong. He put his book down and crawled over to his lover. He knelt behind Jack, resting his chin on his shoulder, circling his arms around him. "You okay?"

Jack sat up, his boots half undone and settled into the embrace, bringing his hands up to rest on Ianto's.

"I've been better," Jack said with a small smile. The smile vanished and Jack sighed, scrubbing at his face with his hands. "I'm failing him."

"What makes you think that?"

"Ruby. She hates me, Yan. I promised Max that I'd look after her and now she thinks I'm destroying her father's memory."

"You're doing what you have to do, Jack," Ianto said firmly. "You're protecting the planet and, by extension, you're protecting her. That's not failing Max. I know what Max's friendship meant to you."

"His people've had interstellar travel for a few centuries. They've got some colonies," Jack sighed. "He got it. The stars."

Ianto didn't say anything, just tightened his arms around Jack's shoulders.  
"It's not that you don't, Yan…" Jack said and then trailed off.

"It's okay, Cariad. I know there are some things I can't understand. One person can't be everything for someone else," he said soothingly.

Ianto always saw how much Jack looked forward to his monthly lunches with Max and how happy he was when he got back to the Hub. He knew there was no way he could understand traveling the stars but Max was someone Jack could talk to about his travels. It was one of the reasons that Ianto had quickly gotten over his rare fits of jealousy about Jack's close relationship with Miranda. He couldn't even begin to fathom Jack's immortality but it was something Miranda could understand completely.

Jack leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees. Ianto let go of his shoulders and started to gently rub his back in circles.

"When we fished him out of the bay, all he had were the clothes on his back," Jack said, shaking his head. "I don't understand what they're looking for."

"Maybe it was something Max had on the ship with him?" Ianto asked.

"We had to dredge his ship and his things out of the bay. It was just typical luggage, clothes, personal items and a few keepsakes he travelled with. We took anything technological and I had to sneak some of the keepsakes out of the archives for him later."

"Could it be one of those things?" Ianto asked, annoyed that Jack hadn't brought up these items earlier.

"The Nepanthian equivalent of a toothbrush and hair trimmer, Yan. The keepsakes were just pictures," Jack said with a shake of his head. "I doubt aliens have come this far for a few snapshots and grooming items."

Ianto had to agree and he shook his head at Torchwood's old policies. With the exception of Miranda, the others didn't know how truly different Jack's Torchwood was from the Torchwood of the past. "Torchwood wouldn't let him keep a few pictures?"

Jack shook his head. "Tabby Rutherford was in charge at the time. She was a good woman but she never bent the rules. Max was lucky, he crashed not six months after I implemented the assimilation protocols. Before that? Max would have been put into cryo. Tabby wouldn't have given him a choice."

Ianto suddenly felt a lightbulb go off over his head. "Could what the Nepanthians are looking for be at the bottom of the bay?"

"Maybe," Jack said with a smile as he turned around to look at his lover but then his face fell. "That was forty years ago, Yan. It could be in the middle of the Atlantic by now."

"No harm in having Fish work through some water current and tide calculations," Ianto said.

"No, there isn't. Remind me to mention it to Fish," Jack said with a sigh. He scrubbed his hands over his face again.

"Every month for forty years and I didn't see it. How could I not see it?"

"You see the best in people, Cariad. That's not a bad thing," Ianto said as he kissed the back of Jack's neck. "You saw it in me."

"It was easy with you," Jack said smiling.

The two men fell silent, Jack closed his eyes and concentrated on Ianto's comforting presence, the feel of the other man's hands on his back. He wasn't quite sure how but he felt a shift in Ianto's mood.

"You okay, Yan?" he asked.

"Yeah, fine. I was just thinking."

"That sounds ominous," Jack said, chuckling a little.

"I was looking over the rift predictor. There's a dry spell around mid-July. I was thinking we could go away somewhere? Just the two of us? Barring the end of the world, of course."

"Really?" Jack said brightly and Ianto couldn't help but chuckle at how much Jack sounded like an eager boy.

Jack turned around to face him, an evil grin on his face as he pushed Ianto back onto the bed.

"What'd you have in mind?" he murmured into Ianto's ear as he started to suck on the lobe.

Ianto shivered as he felt Jack's hands untucking his shirt. "Oh somewhere warm with beautiful beaches."

"You just want to see me in a swim suit," Jack laughed, his breath warm on Ianto's neck.

Ianto felt Jack's hand trail upwards, unbuttoning his dress shirt. With a smile, Ianto started to untuck Jack's own shirt teasingly slow.

"Well, there is that," Ianto said, breathless as Jack tugged his shirt collar out of the way so he could suck up a mark where Ianto's shoulder met his neck.

"The south of France? Spain?" Jack asked softly, pressing more of his body against Ianto and straddling his thigh.

Ianto closed his eyes as Jack started doing absolutely delectable things to his neck. He let out a low moan and then said, "I was thinking about Greece actually. Santorini?"

Jack stiffened suddenly, and not in a good way. His whole body went rigid and he stood up as if the bed linens had caught fire. All the colour had drained from Jack's face and he was staring down at Ianto, his eyes wide.

"Jack? What's wrong?" Worry flooded through Ianto, he had no idea what he'd done or said to make Jack react like this.

"Why do you want to go there?" Jack demanded, his eyes beginning to blaze with anger.

"We don't have to, we could go somewhere else," Ianto said, not understanding where this anger was coming from but trying to ameliorate the situation as quickly as possible.

"But why _there_ of all places, Yan?"

"I saw some pictures online. It looked nice. Jack, please. Tell me what's wrong?" Ianto's confusion was growing in leaps and bounds. He had no idea what was going on or how this whole thing had turned so sour.

"You looked it up online? What did Will say to you?"

"What? Mandy? What does Mandy have to do with anything?" If Ianto was confused before, he was completely perplexed now. He'd mentioned the holiday to Miranda only because she was second in command and would need to know that Torchwood's captain and archivist would be away for possibly as long as a week. He'd mentioned nothing about the destination because he figured he'd speak to Jack first and now this was turning into an unmitigated disaster.

"She didn't say anything to you about it?"

"About what?"

Jack paused and Ianto could have sworn he couldn't even say the name of the city. Through a clenched jaw, Jack said tightly, "Greece."

"No, not a thing," Ianto insisted.

"She didn't put you up to this?"

"What? No, Jack! Why would she?"

"Because she can't leave well enough alone, that's why!" Jack shouted.

"Jack, please, I'm sorry. Forget Greece, okay? We'll go to Spain, Barcelona. You told me you'd love to go there. The city, not the planet. You said you wanted to go somewhere the dogs had noses," Ianto said, twisting around something funny Jack had once said.

But Ianto could tell it was already too late. Jack had worked himself up into some sort of fit and was now rambling on half to Ianto and mostly to himself as he paced the bunker.

"How many times have I told her? She can't just leave it. No!" Jack muttered to himself. "That stubborn, impossible, chore of a woman!"

Ianto couldn't stand it anymore. Jack and Miranda quarreled frequently but Ianto had never heard Jack speak about her like this. He stood up off the bed and grabbed Jack's arm. "Jack, enough! Will you please calm down and tell me what's the matter?!"

"Go ask _her_," Jack said as he yanked himself from Ianto's grasp. Without another word, Jack climbed the bunker's ladder and fled.


	9. Chapter 9

Two nights had passed since the Nepanthian cone had fallen out the of the sky and the Torchwood team was frantically searching Max's house. They'd torn apart the basement. They'd gone through every drawer, bin and plant pot. They'd even torn open every piece of Max's furniture, desperate to find the alien artefact. They'd found nothing alien in the whole of the house. Everything was completely normal, the yellowing magazines, the old toys, the loose screws and old receipts. The box of items that Jack had taken from Ruby's was also a dead end. Every item had been normal. It was all as Ruby had said, knickknacks and silly trinkets, a few pieces of jewelry and some bottles of perfume.

Frustrated and anxious, they'd returned to the Hub to ask the Nepanthians for an extension on the deadline. The whole team was sitting in the boardroom, the alien cube at the centre of the table. Miranda could feel the tension in the room. The Nepanthians had been accommodating so far but none of them knew how long the aliens' patience would last. It was one of the problems when dealing with any alien species. It wasn't just culture shock, sometimes even basic concepts were so wildly different that it was impossible to know what to expect but that wasn't the only reason for the tension.

The passed two days there had been a strain between Jack and Ianto. When they were in a tiff, it was something that percolated down through the rest of them. The only public face the two men gave to their relationship during work hours were small bits of minutia that they deluded themselves into thinking Gwen, Fish and Miranda didn't notice. But sometimes, the absence of a thing is felt more so than its presence.

Their hands didn't linger when Ianto passed Jack his coffee. After helping Jack into his coat, Ianto always brushed his hands across Jack's shoulders twice to smooth the fabric. This morning, Ianto hadn't done it at all. Now, as they waited for the cube to activate, Ianto's chair was perfectly perpendicular with the boardroom table instead of turned on a forty five degree angle towards Jack. Ianto always angled his chair that way so that their feet touched under the table.

"Ianto?" Jack asked. Miranda thought he may well have used 'Mr. Jones' for how he said it.

"Thirty eight hours, eighteen minutes and forty seconds, Sir," he replied. "Four minutes and eleven seconds to go."

Miranda winced inwardly at the way Ianto had said 'sir'. What was usually a thinly veiled pet name had come full circle to a cold honorific. Jack had merely nodded and they all resumed staring at the cube.

"Six seconds, five… four… three… two… one…" Ianto counted down and then depressed his stopwatch button. "Time."

Right on cue, the cube began to glow blue again and rose off the boardroom table.

"Torchwood will return stolen item," it droned as Ianto and Gwen once again flinched at the alien butchering of their language. Miranda thought it actually sounded a bit better than the last time.

Miranda spoke from the foot of the table. "We have been unable to locate the item. Without a proper description, we will need more time to locate it."

The cube fell silent for a several long minutes.

"Acceptable," the voice droned much to everyone's relief. "Responsible agent step forward."

Miranda was about to speak but Jack interrupted her.

His vortex manipulator translating for him, he said, "I'm Captain Jack Harkness. I'm in charge of Torchwood."

"Torchwood will provide collateral."

"I can provide you with whatever collateral you need," Jack said.

Without warning, the cube's green beam enveloped Jack, who vanished without a trace.

"No! Jack!" Ianto shouted.

The entire team sprang to their feet, Gwen and Ianto shouting loudly in Welsh, demanding Jack's immediate return.

Miranda slammed her hand down onto the table and roared, "Silence all of you!"

They all quieted down and Miranda took a deep breath to calm herself. She said with authority, "That is unacceptable! You will return Captain Harkness to us immediately!"

"Collateral required. Do you wish to provide another?"

Ianto stepped forward without hesitation and was about to speak but Miranda held out her hand to stop him. Whatever row the two men had had, it didn't matter. Jack would never forgive her if she let them have Ianto.

"Will our agent be returned to us?" she asked, her voice still carrying weight.

"We return, Torchwood will exchange."

Miranda sighed with relief and asked, "You will not harm our agent?"

"We unharm, Torchwood will exchange."

"How long will you give us to locate the item?"

"Undefined," the cube droned. "Reconnect in two days galactic standard."

The cube floated back down to the table and went dark. Miranda walked to the head of the table, Jack's normal seat. "Fish, the Nepanthians said they'll return Jack unharmed once they have the stolen item back."

"So they've taken him hostage?" Fish gasped.

Ianto shook his head. "I don't think he's a hostage."

"Nor do I. There was no ultimatum or threat," Miranda said. "We need to keep it together, everyone. I want all of you to get a few hours of sleep, use the state rooms. Then I want all of you back at Max's. We keep looking. I'm heading back to Ruby's house, maybe Jack missed something there."

"Jack mentioned something to me this morning about checking out the bay," Fish said.

"The bay?" Miranda asked.

Fish nodded. "He said that when Max's ship crashed, it was in pieces. What if the item they're looking for was on Max's ship and Max didn't know? The ship crashes, breaks apart, and whatever it is sinks into the bay?" Fish theorised.

Miranda pressed her hand to her forehead. "I would love to give Max the benefit of the doubt, Fish but you're forgetting one thing, the dead body buried under Max's flower bed. I'm not dismissing the idea, Fish, but right now we need to focus on more immediate possibilities. If our searches of the houses turns up nothing, we'll revisit it. Go get some sleep everyone."

Fish and Gwen stood up and headed for the north stairs. A few storage rooms on the level below Miranda's rooms were converted into what she referred to as 'the staterooms'. Occasionally, Torchwood played host so the storage rooms had been turned into a few spartan guest quarters but more often than not the rooms were used by the staff for a quick kip. Miranda wasn't surprised that Ianto remained in his seat, the heels of his hands pressed into his forehead.

"We'll get him back, Ifan," Miranda said, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"I have to feed Myfanwy and the Weevils," he said in clipped tones as he shrugged off her hand. He scrubbed at his face and stormed off.


	10. Chapter 10

Miranda climbed into her own car as the rest of the team slept. She took the drive to Ruby's house slowly, trying to use the time to organise her thoughts. The more she thought about it the more she realised how little she knew about the situation. Max had hid so much from them for so long. And now his people had Jack. She didn't blame Jack for not seeing it. Jack only saw Max monthly and Jack always tried to see the best in people. Miranda wondered if Max hadn't used his crash landing here as a fresh start, something that fate and the universe had handed him but she knew all too well how the past always caught up to you no matter how hard you tried to run from it. She shivered a little wondering when her own would finally catch up to her.

She parked out front of Ruby's house and took a deep breath before climbing out of her car and walking up to the front door. She knocked firmly.

"Auntie Mei-Mei, what are you doing here?" Ruby said, standing in her doorway, her hands on her hips.

"I need to talk to you, Ruby."

"Uncle Jack took everything already. I don't have anything else," she snapped.

"Ruby, please-"

"No! I have nothing else. Go away," Ruby said and she went to slam the door.

Miranda brought her hand up and gripped the edge of the door, shoving it open and forcing her way into Ruby's front hallway. She snapped at Ruby, her voice like ice, "I don't have time for this petulance, Ruby. They have Jack."

Colour drained from Ruby's face. "What?"

"They have, Jack. They won't give him back unless we give them what they want and they want whatever your father stole. I need to find it and I need to find it now."

"But there's nothing here! Uncle Jack took everything Tad gave me!"

"Something he gave Ben, maybe? Is he here?"

"No, he's with his father this weekend. You will leave him out of all this!"

"Show me his room. I need to scan everything," Miranda said holding up the portable scanner.

Ruby led Miranda up the staircase and towards her son's room. Miranda started to carefully pick through the room, scanning the boy's possessions and toys. She found nothing. Frustrated, she turned towards Ruby.

"What about your mother?"

"Mam passed away years ago, Auntie."

"I know that, Ruby. Do you still have anything of hers?"

"If Tad gave her anything, she wouldn't have held onto it. You know what a mess the divorce was."

"Can I take a look around?"

"A bit late to be asking that don't you think?" Ruby snapped.

"Watch your tone, girl." Miranda narrowed her eyes at Ruby. "This situation could spiral out of control. There is more at stake here than you realise."

Ruby turned away from her and Miranda saw the shake to her shoulders. She stood up and crossed over to the other woman who looked so much like a small girl.

"I'm sorry, my little gem," Miranda said hugging Ruby close to her. "I know this is hard."

Ruby started to cry and Miranda hugged her harder. Miranda shushed her gently. "It's going to be all right, Ruby."

"He's gone and I'll never see him again. And now you and Uncle Jack are saying all these horrible things about him," she said sobbing.

"Your father was a good man, Ruby. The only thing that matters is how you remember him," she said stroking Ruby's hair. "I'm sorry. I have to keep looking. I don't have much time."

"There's some jewelry in my room but I don't think Tad gave any of it to her. Most of Mam's things are downstairs," she said quietly.

Miranda nodded and headed down the hallway towards Ruby's bedroom. She hated to leave Ruby alone but she had no choice. The Nepanthians didn't give them a long term deadline but she didn't want to leave Jack in their custody any longer than necessary. She wanted this upcoming communication with them to be the last one.

Her scan of the things on Ruby's dresser turned up nothing as did her scan of the jewelry box's contents or anything else in the room. There were no alien signatures. There was no anomalous energy readings. There was nothing made from a non-terrestrial material. Frustrated, Miranda left the bedroom and headed down the hallway and back down the stairs.

She stood in the lounge, looking around, opening drawers and sifting through the bookshelves. Again, she found nothing that looked out of place. She moved into the dining room, examining the furniture and the other items on display. When she crossed to the china cabinet, she stopped and carefully looked at each item. They were the typical items you see in any china cabinet. There was a crystal pitcher that she recognised, it had been her wedding gift to Ruby's parents. There were dishes and platters of fine bone china, crystal glasses and tumblers, nothing unusual. Miranda saw a tiered dessert tray and a large glass salad bowl on the bottom shelf. Frustrated, she sat down at the dining room table and that was when she got a closer look at the salad bowl.

It was in the middle of the shelf, a large clear glass bowl. At first glance, it looked like any serving bowl but on closer inspection there was something odd about it. It was made of thick clear glass and was perfectly spherical. The glass itself was strange, completely clear without a single decoration, air bubble or imperfection. Despite the yellow incandescent lighting in the room, the glass seemed to neither reflect nor refract the light. Miranda took the bowl from the cabinet. It was quite large, over a foot in diameter but it was much lighter than any glass bowl that size should be. A glass bowl also would normally distort any image seen through it but this one didn't. Looking through the curved surface was like looking through a flat plane. The unnatural sight made Miranda shiver, raising gooseflesh on her arms.

"Ruby?" Miranda shouted out.

"What is it Auntie?" Ruby asked, stepping into the dining room.

"This bowl? Where did you get it?"

"It was Mam's. She said that her and Tad bought it."

"They bought it? Where?"

"I don't know. It's from their wedding. She said that her and Tad drank from it on their wedding night."

Miranda's eyebrows raised. "What do you mean?"

"Tad said it was a tradition on his planet. The married couple fill a bowl with wine and drink from it together. He said it was their version of feeding each other cake. Mam and Tad gave it to me when I got married so that Alex and I could do the same."

Miranda scanned the bowl. It was made of some sort of crystal, but no crystal that would ever be found on earth. "This isn't from Earth."

"What? You mean that thing is alien? It's just a glass bowl!"

"It's made from some sort of alien crystal," Miranda said as she put the scanner into her pocket. "I'm sorry, Ruby. I need to take this. It could be what the Nepanthians are looking for. I promise that if it isn't, I'll return it to you."


	11. Chapter 11

It took Miranda no time at all to pack the bowl away into a containment box with her coat for cushioning. She started back towards Cardiff and called ahead to the team to let them know that she may have the item they'd all been searching for.

The others were already in the Hub by the time she'd gotten back. The four of them descended on the boardroom. Miranda put the glass bowl down in the middle of the table.

"Fish I need you to perform a full analysis on this bowl. I want everything you can give me without damaging it. Ianto? Gwen? I need you two to take a look at the cube. See if you can find a way to activate it so we can contact the Nepanthians."

"Why bother with analysis, Evie? We should just contact the Nepanthians and tell them we have what they wanted and be done with it."

"Because we need to approach this from all angles, Fish. If this is what the Nepanthians are looking for, spectacular. Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt, let's hand it over to them and get Jack back. If it isn't, I want us to continue searching Max's house for any other alien artefacts. I don't know how he managed it but he had one artefact. It stands to reason there may be another one."

Fish carefully moved the bowl over to his workstation and began scanning it with a number of pieces of equipment. Miranda knew that she'd handicapped him by telling him he couldn't damage the bowl. The best way for Fish to analyse something was to take a sample. Gwen and Ianto stayed in the board room, taking turns with the cube trying to figure out some way to activate it.

It nearly six in the evening when Miranda herded everyone back into the boardroom for an update.

"Your original analysis of the bowl is correct, Evie. It is made of a crystal structure. It's mostly carbon, like a diamond but it's laboratory created in some way. The molecules are aligned in a unique way. It's why the bowl isn't bending light the way you'd expect it to."

"Are you saying that's a giant diamond bowl?" Gwen gasped.

"Not really. It's not pure carbon, it's some sort of small carbon molecule but I can't tell anymore without a sample."

"No damaging that thing, Fish."

"Don't worry about it, Evie. I couldn't get a sample off of that bowl if I tried. You could probably drop it from Myfanwy's nest and it wouldn't get a scratch on it. That material could have enormous industrial applications," Fish said. It was one of his constant frustrations. Many of the alien items they found could dramatically and drastically improve or streamline human society but everything needed to be kept secret. Fish often wondered how long it would be before a cure for cancer fell through the rift and they were all forced to keep it locked away in the archives.

"Gwen? Ianto? No luck with that cube?"

"Gwen and I tried absolutely everything we could think of to get it to activate. We were unsuccessful, Ma'am."

An awkward silence fell over the entire boardroom at Ianto's use of the honorific. Gwen and Fish gaped at Ianto and then turned their gaze to Miranda.

"Don't call me that again, Ifan," Miranda said firmly. "Ever."

"We may just have to wait for them to contact us," Fish said.

"Ifan? How long before the Nepanthians make contact?"

"Just over thirty hours," Ianto said, "Around midnight, tomorrow."

"Okay, we wait."

"Mandy-"

"We can't activate the cube, Ifan. We have no choice but to wait for the next scheduled communication." Miranda took her fob watch out of her trouser pocket and clicked it open. "Gwen? Fish? For now, I want you two to head home. Get a good night's rest and then I want both of you to head straight out to Max's first thing tomorrow. Keep packing things up and scanning. Ifan and I will stay here in case the cube activates ahead of schedule."

Gwen put her hand on Ianto's shoulder as she left. A few minutes later, Miranda heard the proximity alarms go off as Gwen left through the dog wheel door.

"I'd like to keep trying this cube, Evie," Fish said, turning the cube over in his hands.

"No, Fish. Go home and get some sleep. You can take a look at it in the morning if you like but I need you out at Max's no later than ten," Miranda said firmly.

Fish could tell there was no arguing with her so after he too laid a comforting hand on Ianto's shoulder, he walked out of the boardroom and a few minutes later, like Gwen, left through the cog wheel door.

Once Miranda was alone in the boardroom with Ianto. She stood up and said, "You live here so I can't stop you from doing whatever you want after hours. If you want to keep mucking about with that cube, I won't stop you."

To her surprise, Ianto left the cube in the middle of the boardroom table. His voice stoic and level. "I'm going to put the Hub into night mode. I'll see you tomorrow, Mandy."

Miranda knew that Ianto was trying to put up a brave face and not let the others see how much he missed Jack and how worried he was. She decided to leave him be and let him keep up his appearances for now. After a few attempts trying to get the cube to activate, she locked it away in a containment box and then went to see if Ianto wanted some dinner.

The Hub was in night mode so she assumed the young Welshman would be in the bunker the two men shared. She walked up to Jack's office and when she pushed the door open, her heart broke at the sight in front of her.

Ianto Jones was asleep on the sofa beneath Jack's greatcoat. He hadn't even changed out of his suit.

She sighed and knelt next to her friend. She pressed a kiss to his forehead and Ianto muttered Jack's name in his sleep and then fell silent again. She decided to leave him be but when she rose to leave, Ianto stirred.

"Mandy?"

"I'm sorry, Ifan, I didn't mean to wake you," she said, crouching back down next to him and brushing her fingers through his hair. "I came to check on you."

"What time is it?" Ianto said, looking around bleary eyed.

"Barely eight. How long have you been asleep?"

"Just a few minutes," he said, standing up and hanging the coat up with great care.

"Would you like to come to mine for dinner? I have some of that chicken cassoulet left over that you love."

"I'm not really hungry, Mandy," Ianto said, flicking a piece of dust off the coat's sleeve.

She stood up and walked over to her friend and leaned against Jack's desk

"You need to eat something," she said gently. "Why don't you get your things and come stay with me tonight?"

"No, I'll be fine. I should tidy up the bunker while I don't have Jack making a mess," Ianto said as he crossed the office to the ladder. He was about to climb onto it when he stopped, staring down into the hatch. He swallowed convulsively, as he thought of climbing into bed, their bed, alone. He took a step back from the hatch.

"Actually, I think I'd like that," he said softly.

Miranda pushed herself off Jack's desk and took hold of Ianto's hand. "Do you want me to go down and get your things?"

He shook his head. "No, I just need a minute. I'll meet you downstairs."


	12. Chapter 12

The two friends had eaten dinner in silence, Ianto more moving his food around his plate than actually eating it. After dinner, he'd had changed into his nightclothes and vanished into Miranda's bedroom, professing exhaustion. It wasn't long before Miranda decided to turn in herself and she opened the bedroom door softly. When she poked her head in, she saw Ianto laying on her bed, reading a book.

"Couldn't sleep?" she asked.

He shook his head and returned to his book. Miranda went into the en suite and got undressed and went about the rest of her night time routine. She ran her hands over the pink silk dressing gown hanging on the back of the bathroom door nostalgically. The dressing gown had been a gift from Jack. She opened the door and stepped out into the bedroom.

"Christ, Mandy, you're not coming to bed like that are you?" Ianto asked as he drew up his knees and tried to bury his face in his book.

"You modern humans are so prudish. I think I should be offended," she said with false hurt as she rummaged through her dresser drawer. She took out a pair of panties and a camisole, tugging them on quickly. "Is that better?"

"Marginally, thanks," he said, rolling his eyes.

She returned the eye roll with one of her own as she lifted the blankets and climbed into bed next to him. He laid a hand on her arm.

"You're a beautiful woman, Mandy but Jack would be furious with me if I slept next to you naked without him."

With a laugh, she picked up her own book from the bedside table and began to read. Ianto returned to his own reading but after a few minutes looked over the top of the book around the room.

"Was this Jack's side of the bed?"

"Hmm?"

"Was this Jack's side of the bed?" he asked again.

"Yes, it was," Miranda said without looking up from her book.

Ianto returned to his own book but his mind refused to focus on the story. He looked around the room again, his eyes settling on the old black and white wedding photograph of Jack and Miranda on the dresser among the other photographs.

"Can I ask you something, Mandy?"

"Sure, Ifan," she said but didn't look up from her book.

"What happened between you and Jack in the twenties?"

She let the book fall forward and gave Ianto a look. "Why the sudden curiosity?"

Ianto sighed. "Jack and I had a bit of a row a few days ago… about you."

Miranda's eyebrows shot up. "Me? How so?"

"Remember that holiday I mentioned?" he said. "I did some looking online and I decided on Santorini, Greece."

Miranda's eyes widened and she frowned deeply. "Oh, no."

"Jack went completely mental."

"We went there on our sixth wedding anniversary. It was a disaster. We spent most of the holiday fighting and shouting at each other."

"And having lots of make-up sex I'm sure," Ianto said with a slight chuckle.

Miranda didn't answer him, only smiled. It was an odd tugging at the corners of her lips, as if remembering something very pleasant.

"What were you two fighting about?" Ianto asked.

"It's complicated, Ifan," was her reply, as she tried to return to her book.

Ianto rolled his eyes at the patronising answer. "It's Jack, Mandy. It's always complicated."

Miranda sighed. "I was living at the house in Caernarfon and Jack was supposed to come home Friday night and leave again on Sunday night. But you know how Torchwood is. More often than not, he couldn't come home. Sometimes he'd be gone for months on end."

"So the trip to Greece…?"

"Was Jack's way of trying to make it up to me. He was always so good with the grand gestures," she smiled slightly and then sighed. "Fourteen days. It was so beautiful, so wonderful at first and then it all fell apart."

"Why?" Ianto asked.

He could see the deep reluctance creasing Miranda's face. He was about to tell her to forget about it when she spoke, her voice soft and measured, "Jack wanted to have a baby."

"What?!" Ianto cried as his eyebrows shot up. He knew that Jack had a living daughter but he also knew that her conception was unintentional. Jack was always very careful in his affairs with women to avoid fathering children, children that he would be forced to outlive.

"He thought it was something I wanted. Things were different back then. He was different. He didn't completely understand the implications of his immortality."

"Or yours, apparently," Ianto said. Miranda, an immortal of the Game, was incapable of bearing children.

"He thought it would fix things. Raising our child would occupy me and I wouldn't be alone. He couldn't understand why I was so dead set against it. It's what every woman wanted back then. I tried so hard to convince him to drop it but he wouldn't."

"And neither of you knew the truth about each other," Ianto said. "I still don't understand why going back there would upset him so much."

"I finally told him that I couldn't have children but he wouldn't let the subject drop. He started talking about doctors and specialists and after we got back he started talking about adoption. I knew I couldn't stay any longer."

Ianto didn't miss the look of complete and utter shame that passed across her face as Miranda said softly, "He'd bought me this ridiculous figurine of the Parthenon the very first day we'd arrived in Greece. When I jumped off the Menai suspension bridge, I left the figurine on the ledge."

"For fuck's sake, Mandy! How could you?" Ianto gaped at her as anger welled up in his chest. He couldn't believe Miranda could be so thoughtlessly callous. Such a gesture would have been devastating for anyone but especially so for Jack who was always the willing Atlas, ever heaping guilt onto his own shoulders. Whatever Miranda's intentions were in leaving the figurine on the ledge, it wouldn't have mattered. Jack would only blame himself, probably even more so than if Miranda had left a letter or note since the figurine would be so ambiguous.

"It was only in hindsight that I realised what a foolish and hurtful thing it was to do," Miranda said, still looking ashamed. "I was worried so I watched him from afar. He went back to Santorini alone, drinking and shagging his way across the city. One night, he staggered towards a cliff that we had had a picnic on. I watched him leave the figurine on the edge and before I could stop him, he leapt off the cliff."

Ianto swallowed on a dry throat. He had known that their marriage had been a stormy one but Ianto had assumed it was nothing more than what he saw between the two of them on a daily basis, simple arguments brought about by impatience, stubbornness or misunderstandings. He had had no idea what an absolute catastrophe it had been until this very moment. He was almost sorry he'd asked.

"It wasn't my finest moment, Ifan," Miranda said softly.

"How could you do that to anyone, Mandy? Faking your death is one thing, but a suicide? And so help me, if you say it's complicated, I'll shoot you."

"I know Jack. I know what sort of man he is. If I had just left, moved away, Jack would have looked for me."

"You could have divorced him," Ianto insisted.

"In 1926?"

"Jack wouldn't have-" Ianto broke off realising what he was saying. In 1926, Miranda wouldn't have known about Jack's fifty first century sensibilities. "You didn't know that Jack would be open to divorce."

"No, I didn't. No body could be recovered from my death. I revive too quickly."

"Jack would've wanted to see the body himself," Ianto said.

"And the bridge was the only thing I could think of that would have zero probability of harming anyone else."

"And the figurine?"

"A poor choice for a suicide note. I can't give you any better explanation for that," she sighed. "It's taken Jack and I a long time but I think he's mostly forgiven me and I him."

"What did he do?"

A strange look came over Miranda's face. "That's his own story, Ifan."


	13. Chapter 13

Fish and Gwen had spent the entire day out at Max's house sifting through more of his possessions. The two of them had found no alien artefacts of any kind. By the time night fell and the next deadline was drawing closer, the two of them were completely exhausted not to mention famished. Miranda called them both back to the Hub and they were all gathered around the boardroom table devouring Chinese take-away.

Ianto and Miranda had tried all day, unsuccessfully to get the cube to activate, even going as far as to drop the dampening fields that were blocking the signal that was coming from the cylinder. To their disappointment, the cylinder appeared to have stopped transmitting. In the end they were all forced to merely wait as the deadline slowly approached.

Their meal was taken in silence, the glass bowl, the only alien artefact they'd found so far, was sitting next to the cube at the center of the table.

"Ifan?" Miranda asked from Jack's chair at the head of the table.

"Thirty minutes, forty seconds," Ianto said, looking down at his stop watch.

Miranda tugged the cardboard box the Chinese had come in towards her and dug through the sauce packets. She tossed a fortune cookie at each one of her team mates.

"Stop sulking everyone. Have a cookie. Learn Chinese and get some lucky numbers," she said with mock seriousness.

"Jack loves these…" Ianto said, tearing into the plastic wrapper.

"He just loves playing the 'in bed' game with them. Right, everyone, read their fortune aloud. Don't forget the 'in bed' bit at the end! Jack'll be cross with us if we forgot," Miranda said with a forced smile and that broke into a fit of genuine laughter as she read her fortune. "'There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead for you… in bed.'"

There was a light ripple of laughter around the table followed by the crinkling of plastic as the rest of the team broke into their fortune cookies. Miranda stood watching the others as they each cracked into their cookies.

Gwen immediately started to giggle as she read the small slip of paper. "'You'll advance far with your abilities… in bed' Christ, it makes me sound like some kind of prostitute!"

"'Think you can. Think you can't. Either way, you'll be right… in bed' That doesn't even make any sense," Fish laughed.

"Jack says 'in bed' always makes sense," Ianto said with a smile.

"C'mon, mate? What's yours?" Fish asked as he crunched on his own cookie.

Ianto held up the cookie pieces and shrugged. "Empty. It happens sometimes. Factory mistake."

He was lying. Miranda had seen him tuck the small slip of paper into his suit jacket pocket while the others were occupied with their own cookies. She decided not to mention that receiving an empty fortune cookie was considered bad luck.

"Ifan?" she asked softly.

"Six minutes, fifty eight seconds…" he said, looking at his stop watch.

Miranda gathered up the fortune cookie pieces and empty wrappers, dumping everything into the cardboard box. Ianto went to dispose of it. As he walked back into the boardroom, he was counting.

"Six… five… four… three… two… one… Time," he said, clicking the stop watch's button.

Right on cue, again, the cube began to glow and rose off the boardroom table.

"Torchwood, please respond," the cube droned.

Gwen had leaned in next to Fish so she could whisper a translation to him but she needn't bothered. The cube was speaking in English, perfect English.

"This is Torchwood. We believe we have located the item you seek," Miranda said. "We would like to exchange it for our agent. To whom am I speaking? How may I address you?"

"Torchwood, this is Nepanthian Orbiter Two. Our apologies for our previous translation difficulties. Captain Harkness has been most helpful in revising our program," the cube's voice said. "I am Assessor Ruip."

"Assessor Ruip, this is Doctor Miranda Ryan. May I speak with Captain Harkness?" Miranda asked.

"Our communication device is part of a neural interface so direct communication is not possible. We assure you that Captain Harkness has not been ill treated and is unharmed. Are you ready for us to begin our scan?"

"You may begin when ready, Assessor," Miranda said, grateful that she now didn't have to endure the pained looks from Gwen and Ianto as the Nepanthians butchered their language.

The cube's flat blue beam suddenly enveloped the Torchwood board room, scanning the area.

"That is the chalice, Doctor Ryan. There are other matters that we need to discuss in person. Will you receive our delegation?" the Assessor asked.

Miranda looked around the table and everyone nodded. "By what means will you transport your delegation to the surface?"

"We will use the cube's teleport system."

Miranda was relieved that they wouldn't have to deal with the difficulties of landing an alien ship in the middle of Cardiff. "How many in your delegation?"

"Only two, myself and my associate."

"We need time to prepare for your arrival. Can you please give us two Earth hours? Captain Harkness can convert our time measurements for you."

A few minutes passed and then the cube spoke again, "Two Earth hours is acceptable."

"Will you be bringing Captain Harkness with you?" Miranda asked, delicately.

"We will. Please extend our apologies to the Captain's spouse. It was not our intention to alarm him. We shall see each other in two Earth hours, Doctor Ryan. Nepanthian Orbiter Two out."

Everyone's eyes fell on Ianto and he flushed scarlet, trying to ignore everyone's stares as he depressed the button on his stopwatch. Gwen opened her mouth as if to speak but Miranda cleared her throat, stopping the question she knew was coming out of the former PC's mouth.

Miranda said immediately, "Okay everyone, diplomacy time. Gwen? Fish? Head home, get changed, professional but make sure you can move in it. I don't expect a firefight but we should be prepared for anything. No concealing our weapons, I want to show some strength. Ifan? We'll head out to that all night Tesco and see if we can't get some food for our guests. We'll all meet back here in an hour and a half."


	14. Chapter 14

It had taken Ianto and Miranda an hour to get the groceries and return to the Hub. Ianto, who's appearance was always impeccable, had only changed into a fresh shirt and tie. He was laying out the food in the boardroom while Miranda was getting changed in her rooms. The two hadn't known whether or not their guests would even eat or what they would like so Miranda and Ianto had decided on a variety of fresh fruit.

"Looks wonderful, Ifan," Miranda said, admiring the two small platters of decoratively arranged fruit on the boardroom table. She had changed out of her jeans and was wearing a black pant suit. Her gun was nestled in her shoulder holster. Ianto thought she looked like an Mi6 agent if it wasn't for the Chinese jian hanging on her right hip in its polished wooden scabbard. Her sword was usually concealed within her outer coat but now it hung from a sword belt, displayed proudly, its green silk tassel shining in the light. Ianto couldn't but help admire what was clearly an antique.

"Shame you can't wear it like that all the time," he said nodding towards the sword.

"Well, it does tend to draw attention," she said with a chuckle, leaning over the fruit platters. She picked up a piece of pineapple and popped it into her mouth.

"May I?" Ianto asked.

"Of course," Miranda said, drawing the sword from its scabbard, handing it to him, hilt first.

"Wow…" he said as he tested the sword's weight in his hand, admiring the craftsmanship. "Where did you get it?"

"China."

Ianto rolled his eyes at the snark. "You know what I meant, Mandy."

She smiled at him. "The early Tang dynasty, seventh century A.D."

"Looks good for being over thirteen hundred years old," Ianto said, giving the sword a small swing and then handing it back to her.

"Only the scabbard and the hilt are that old. The steel made back then is inferior to what's available today. The blade is modern heat treated, carbon tempered steel. I had to have it custom made. There are few blacksmiths alive in the world today that make truly battle ready blades. The sword is a weapon of the past," she said as she sheathed the sword.

The two of them looked up as they heard the proximity alarms. Gwen and Fish walked into the boardroom, both wearing suits. Miranda saw Ianto's eyes widen when she caught sight of Fish's suit and she tried to hide her grin. The Australian looked as if he'd stepped straight out of the 1990's. Worse than the dated appearance of the suit was the fact that the shirt and tie didn't match.

"That tie is atrocious, Fish," Ianto said.

"Only one I own, mate," Fish said, blushing a little.

Ianto rolled his eyes. "I'll get you another one."

Miranda and Gwen both giggled. Fish shot them a glare.

"You should probably let Ianto tie it too," Gwen said, pointing at his crooked tie knot.

"He probably would have offered you a shirt, if he thought any of his would fit you," Miranda said with a smirk.

"Christ! Leave off, ladies! I'm not used to representing humanity!" Fish said as he yanked the tie off.

The two women giggled again as Ianto walked back into the boardroom carrying several ties. After selecting something appropriate, Ianto began to skillfully tie a Windsor knot as the two ladies let out a chorus of, "Awww…"

Both men shot them an annoyed glare and both women turned away, giggling.

With Fish's tie sorted, Miranda turned to Ianto. "Time, Ifan?"

"Three minutes, sixteen seconds," Ianto said, looking at his stopwatch.

The team assembled on one side of the room and waited, Ianto staring at his stopwatch.

"Five… four… three… two… one… Time," Ianto counted down.

As usual, right on cue, the cube rose off the boardroom table and the flat green beam of light shot out of the edge. Jack and two male Nepanthians appeared. Like Max, they appeared to be human but the differences were there if you knew what to look for. They were both short in stature, narrow through the shoulders and hips with a slight pot belly. They wore long tunics and trousers of the same design and colour, almost like a uniform of some type. They both had brown curly hair but one's was darker than the other's. Miranda could see the swirling blue markings on their pale necks and hands, markings that Max had usually covered with makeup and clothing.

Miranda stepped forward and said, "Welcome to Earth and to Torchwood. I'm Doctor Miranda Ryan. Which one of you is Assessor Ruip?"

The darker haired man stepped forward. "I am Assessor Ruip, Doctor Ryan. This is my associate, Assessor Yohim. I hope my translator is functioning properly?" he asked tapping the box on a cord around his neck.

"It is, Assessor Ruip. We can understand you and I hope that you can understand us."

"What was the expression you used, Captain Harkness? Clear as crystal? Forgive me, Captain. Please, go to your spouse," the Assessor turned to Ianto. "My apologies."

Jack pushed through passed the two Nepanthians and crossed over to Ianto. He cupped his lover's face and gave Ianto a brief, tender kiss.

Ianto blushed, pushing Jack's hand off of his face, self conscious with their audience. He cleared his throat nervously. "No apology is necessary, Assessor."

Miranda gestured at the boardroom table. "Assessors, please, help yourself to a selection of our planet's food and beverage."

"Thank you for your hospitality, Doctor, but we are here for the chalice."

Miranda nodded at Ianto who tugged his hand from Jack's and opened up the containment box that was on the boardroom table. He gently took out the glass bowl and placed it on the table. The two Nepanthians crossed over to the item, scrutinising it.

"Thanks to you all for recovering it," Assessor Yohim said.

"You're most welcome, Assessors. If I might ask, what is it?" Miranda asked, unable to hide her curiosity.

"The chalice is a sacred item used in our marriage rites, it is generally passed down through families, generation to generation. Many centuries ago, when our people first took to the stars, there was one family who was instrumental in our exploration and colonisation. The family of the man you know as Max Evans. They are still a prominent family in our society," Assessor Ruip said. "When came time for Max Evans to marry, his family arranged an excellent match for him but he vanished the night of the wedding, taking the chalice with him."

"Captain Harkness has explained that arranged marriage is frowned upon in your society," said Assessor Yohim. "We do not force the match upon our children. There are several ways that Max Evans could have put a stop to the wedding without stigma but it is still unclear why he fled, taking the chalice. His family hired a special investigator to locate Max Evans, that is the body that you found. We thank you for her return."

"Now that he is dead, we will never know why he fled nor be able to seek justice for the investigator's family," Assessor Ruip said. "Captain Harkness said that he has progeny on this world?"

Miranda hesitated. She knew that some alien cultures would hold Ruby responsible in her father's place. She looked at Jack who nodded his head slightly. "Yes, Max Evans married a human woman who already had a daughter. He raised her as his own. The chalice was in her possession but she did not know it was stolen. Her step-father had passed it down to her when she married."

The Assessors nodded. "It will please his family to know the chalice was used by his adopted child."

Assessor Ruip stepped forward. "Thank you for returning the chalice to us, Doctor Ryan. We must now address the issue of Max Evans. His crimes are not in dispute. He stole the chalice from his family depository and murdered the special investigator sent to pursue him."

Before Miranda could speak, the other Nepanthian stepped forward. "Despite the length of time, his family has kept the complaint open and the murder of the investigator has no statue of limitations. The man you know as Max Evans is a criminal that Torchwood and the planet Earth have harbored for forty of your years."

"Harboring a criminal for their entire life is a serious offence on our worlds," Assessor Yohim said. "We understand that your world does not have interstellar travel and Captain Harkness has made it clear that you were unaware that Max Evans was a fugitive nor that he had murdered the special investigator but our laws do not make exceptions for such things once the fugitive has died."

"What is the penalty under your laws?" Miranda asked, although the somber tone both Assessors were using had her on guard.

"Execution of the harboring parties," Assessor Ruip said, producing what appeared to be a weapon from a pocket in his tunic.

Keeping calm, Miranda held up her hand behind her so the rest of the team wouldn't react or draw their own weapons. "Whom do you consider the harboring parties?"

"Torchwood is listed by the Shadow Proclamation as the agency responsible for non-Earth affairs. You and Captain Harkness are the only remaining members of the team that provided Max Evans with succor when he originally crashed here," Assessor Yohim said as he too, produced the same weapon from his own tunic.

"What is your method of execution?" Miranda asked.

Ruip held up his weapon. "The kill setting on our energy pulse weapons is quick and painless. You and Captain Harkness will come with us to face execution on our homeward."

Miranda swallowed and looked at Jack. Even though the energy weapon wouldn't kill either of them permanently, both of them would revive afterwards and what would the Nepanthians do with them then? It was dishonest but if they could get the Nepanthians to execute them here and leave, no one would be the wiser. Miranda needed to think quickly but the seconds were ticking away. She had no idea what to do.

"Do I have any rights as spouse?" Ianto said stepping forward.

The Assessors looked at him with pity and Yohim spoke. "As spouse, you may accompany Captain Harkness to our world to witness the execution and we will, of course, return his body to you so that you may observe whatever rituals your culture requires of your dead."

Miranda could see the wheels in Ianto's head turning.

"How long does the voyage to your world take? Our faith requires burial within a certain time frame."

"What is the time frame you require?" Assessor Ruip asked.

"One Earth day," Ianto said.

Miranda glanced quickly at the rest of the team, grateful to see impassive faces. The lie had fallen easily from Ianto's lips.

"My associate and I must confer," Assessor Yohim said.

"Please, take all the time you need," Miranda said with a small bow.

The two Nepanthians touched the translator cubes around their necks and started to speak to each other. Gwen opened her mouth to speak but Jack silenced her with a look.

After a few minutes, the two Nepanthians reactivated their translators and stepped back towards the Torchwood team. "We understand the restrictions of your faiths. Penalty can be carried out here. Doctor Ryan, Captain Harkness, does your faith require preparation for death?"

Miranda and Jack looked at each other. Jack stepped forward and said, "No."

"Do you require personal preparation for death?" Ruip asked.

"Just a few moments, please," Miranda said as she turned to the rest of the team. She gave Fish and Gwen a small hug and a look that told them to keep quiet. Miranda removed her sword and handed it to Gwen. She unbuckled and removed her shoulder holster and passed it to Fish. Ianto and Jack were huddled in a corner. The Assessors were casting sad glances towards the two men.

Miranda reached into her trouser pocket and pulled out a string of rosary beads, twining them around her fingers. Gwen and Fish both raised their eyes at the beads' appearance but Miranda ignored them. She walked over to Ianto and Jack and laid a hand on Jack's shoulder. The two men separated and Ianto went to stand over by Fish and Gwen, the two of them putting their arms around Ianto protectively. No matter how temporary they all knew this death would be, every team member know how much Ianto hated watching Jack die.

Miranda sank to her knees, clutching the beads at her chest. She was confident that the alien energy weapon wouldn't kill Jack permanently but she had doubts about her own fate. On Earth, she knew that the only way to kill her was severing her head from the rest of her body but every time she died by some alien device or substance, Miranda felt a lingering doubt in the back of her mind about whether she would revive. Her kind had existed for as long as humanity and, in her heart, she always believed there was something terrestrial about what made her immortal. She swallowed on a dry throat and turned to Jack who knelt beside her.

Both Assessors stepped forward, their weapons raised and Miranda closed her eyes.

Ruip spoke officially, "Doctor Miranda Ryan, Captain Jack Harkness. You are both guilty of harboring a fugitive for the whole of his life, denying the victims of his crimes any chance of justice, closure or peace. The penalty is death."

Without any other warning, both Assessors fired their weapons, an orange beam impacting Jack and Miranda in the chest. The two immortals gasped simultaneously and began to slump, Miranda's hand dropping the beads clutched in them.

"No!" Ianto shouted, surging forward, catching Jack before his body hit the carpeted floor. Fish and Gwen also rushed to Miranda's side, Gwen gathering up the beads and putting them back into Miranda's hand.

"Penalty has been carried out," Ruip said officially. "We are sorry, our instructions when we set out from Nepanth were clear."

Yohim lifted the glass bowl from the boardroom table. The cube enveloped both the Assessors in a green light and they vanished without a trace. Fish reacted first, dumping the communication cube into the containment box and sealing it. The cube contained, they could finally speak freely.

"Miranda will revive first," Gwen said. "Fish? Pick her up and put her on the autopsy table then come back here and help Ianto with Jack. We can put Jack on the sofa in his office."

Fish lifted Miranda up in his arms, the beads once again falling to the floor. Gwen picked them up and put them into Fish's hand. "Keep those with her."

"I will," he said as he left the room.

He laid her out carefully on the autopsy table, arranging her arms over her chest and lacing the beads around her fingers. He closed her eyes and smoothed back her hair and said softly, "Why were you afraid?"

He allowed himself to linger for a few moments before he raced back across the main Hub and back to the boardroom. Ianto was still on the floor, clutching Jack to him.

"Ready, mate?" Fish asked Ianto.

Ianto nodded and gripped Jack under the arms. Fish grabbed Jack's legs and the two men carried him into his office, laying him on the sofa. Ianto arranged Jack on the sofa, his lover's head pillowed in his lap.

"I'll stay with him. You two stay with Mandy," Ianto said.

"You'll be okay, Ianto?" Gwen asked, taking Ianto's hand in hers.

He nodded and squeezed her hand affectionately. "I'll be fine, thanks, Gwen."

Fish looked at Ianto. "It might be a gruesome question, Ianto, but has Jack ever died like this before?"

Ianto shook his head. "I don't recall any time that either of them has died by some sort of energy weapon. I would've classified it as death by electrocution, similar to a Cyberman deletion but that only takes Jack minutes to recover from."

"It's been longer than a few minutes," Fish said.

"I know. We're in uncharted territory. We're just going to have to wait it out," Ianto said as he ran his fingers through Jack's hair.


	15. Chapter 15

They had waited but when the sun came up the next day Jack and Miranda were still dead. They had put Miranda onto Jack's old camp bed and moved her into Jack's office so they could keep an eye on both immortals and Gwen had set up a rota so someone was with them at all times, even enlisting her husband.

Rhys was currently on duty, sitting in Jack's desk chair reading a magazine. Life at Torchwood went on and the rift continued to spew out all manner of flotsam and jetsam onto Cardiff. Ianto was out on a Weevil call while Fish and Gwen were investigating a spike down in Penarth. Rhys had to admit that he'd done a lot of odd things for Torchwood over the years but this took the cake. He licked his finger and turned the page, glancing up at the two dead immortals. Learning that Jack couldn't die, well, that was an eye opener, no mistake but Rhys just added it to the long list of oddities that had started in his life since Gwen began working for Torchwood. Another bloody immortal? Rhys had damn near wanted to faint. _What's next? Werewolves and vampires?_

He shifted in Jack's desk chair a little, and glanced back up at the two immortals. Gwen had said that he'd know when they woke up, that there'd be no mistaking it. Still, he'd only seen it once before and a building was collapsing around them so he hadn't really been paying attention. After one more look, Rhys got up to use the loo. He tried to make his trip as quick as possible and was relieved to see that both immortals were still dead when he returned. _Now isn't that a queer thought?_ he though with a chuckle. It was a good thing he'd emptied his bladder because what happened next would have made him piss himself.

Jack sat up and gasped for air.

Rhys whirled around, dropped the magazine in his hand and rushed to Jack's side. _Shit! Gwen said Miranda would be first!_

"Easy there now, Harkness!" Rhys grabbed Jack's flailing arms.

"Ianto!" Jack shouted.

"You wish, pretty boy!"

"RHYS? What are you doing in my base?" Jack said as he tried to push himself up.

"Now there's gratitude for you! Gwen's got me on the immortal watch rota," Rhys said.

"Where's Ianto?"

"Ianto is out chasing one of those Weevil things."

"Is Will with him?" Jack asked, pushing himself up.

"Who?" Rhys asked, confused.

"Miranda," Jack clarified.

"No, mate, she's over there," Rhys said pointing over to the camp bed.

"What?" Jack asked, aghast, the colour draining from his already pale face as his gaze settled on Miranda's still form.

"Gwen said those aliens killed both of you with some sort of phaser gun. Miranda's still down for the count."

But Jack wasn't listening to him. He'd leapt off the sofa and was at Miranda's side. She was laying on his old camp bed, her arms laid on top of her chest, a set of rosary beads clasped in one hand. His hand trembling, Jack reached out to touch her. She was ice cold and stiff.

"Oh my God…" Jack said, tears starting to form in his eyes. "No…"

"What are you on about? Gwen said she'd wake up, like you!" Rhys said, confused at why Jack was so upset.

Jack still wasn't listening to him. Tears streaming down his face, he darted across the office and yanked open his desk drawer, shoving a comm unit he found there into his ear. "Ianto? Gwen? Fish? Someone answer me, now."

"Jack! You're awake! I'll kill Rhys he was supposed to tell me when Miranda woke up!" Gwen shouted back. "Ianto will be so relieved. He's been in a right state! He's on his way back to you now. Fish and I are finishing up here."

"Get back here as soon as you can, Gwen. Will still isn't awake."

"What? She always heals faster than you do!" Gwen exclaimed. "We're going to finish up here. We'll be back soon."

"Hurry, Gwen," Jack said. "I think I hear Ianto now."

Jack deactivated his ear piece and sprinted out of his office. His heart leapt when he saw Ianto coming out of the hallway that led to the Hub garage.

"IANTO!" he shouted.

"JACK!" Ianto replied as he sprinted towards his lover.

Rhys had to admit it was like something out of a bad romantic movie. The two men running and meeting in the middle of the Hub, throwing their arms around each other and kissing passionately but he couldn't help but grin at the sight.

"Where's Mandy?" Ianto asked brightly, craning his neck in Rhys's direction.

"She's not awake," Jack said, his voice breaking slightly.

"What?" Ianto gasped.

"I need to know how long it's been, Yan."

"Sixty three hours," Ianto whispered, tears forming in his own eyes. "It's been two and a half days, Jack."

Jack let out a half strangled sob and pulled Ianto to him. The two men clung to each other, digging their fingers into each other hard enough to mark. Jack buried his face into Ianto's shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. Ianto tried and failed to control the sobs wracking him as he cried with relief for Jack and despair for Miranda. Rhys hung back, allowing the two men their bittersweet reunion, watching from afar.

It was a long while before the two quieted, cupping each other's faces and wiping the tears from the other's cheeks. Hand in hand they drew themselves up and walked towards Jack's office, nodding at Rhys as they passed. The three men stood over Miranda's body, Jack and Ianto barely controlling their grief.

"We need to move her downstairs to a drawer," Ianto said, wiping tears away from his cheeks. He shuddered, not wanting to mention the possibility of autopsy. "Is there someone we should call?"

"Her solicitor in London. I think his name is Lanning," Jack said scrubbing his face with his hands. His voice cracked as he spoke. "I promised her she wouldn't end up in the morgue. She wanted a Catholic service followed by cremation."

"But Gwen said she'd wake up!" Rhys exclaimed. "She said Miranda couldn't die unless someone cut off her head!"

"Maybe he's right, Jack? Couldn't she still revive?" Ianto asked.

"She's been down longer than me, Ianto. She's never been down longer than me. Ever."

"But she's not like you," Ianto pointed out.

Jack knelt down next to Miranda. He tried to pry her fingers open, to get to the rosary beads. The fingers wouldn't move, they clutched, statuesque at the beads in her hand. "She's in rigor mortis, Yan. That doesn't happen to us."

"I'm not going to even ask how you know that," Ianto said, shivering. He asked quietly, "I didn't even know she went to church. Do you know which one?"

"No, she kept her faith to herself. I just know it's a Catholic church."

"Catholicism forbids cremation," Ianto pointed out.

"I know but her final directive on file is very specific, a Catholic service followed by cremation. Her ashes are to be divided into fifths and each one has its own set of instructions with her solicitor in London."

"Fifths?" Rhys asked.

"I don't know why," Jack said and then choked back a sob. "One of those fifths goes to me."

"Does one of them go to Italy? Tuscany?" Ianto asked in a hoarse whisper.

"I think so," Jack said, wiping his eyes. "Will has property there."

Ianto closed his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks as Miranda's plan came into focus. He did the maths in his head. _Jack was her third husband…_ "Mandy's second wife, Isabetta, is buried in Italy. Her spouses. She must have been married five times."

Rhys looked down at the immortal woman, his own eyes shining with tears, a sudden thought hit him.

Rhys said, "Not to get graphic here but the body hasn't, well, started decomposing yet. Shouldn't that have started by now?"

Jack and Ianto stared at Rhys in disbelief. They had both overlooked that simple fact. The body was days old. Torchwood agents were no strangers to corpses. By now, since the body had been kept at a cool room temperature and with the Hub's humidity, there should be bloating of the abdomen and discolouration of the skin. There was no smell of decomposition in the air.

"He has a point there, Jack," Ianto said. "It's been over two days."

"We'll keep watching her. Ianto? Help me move her downstairs."


	16. Chapter 16

The next evening, after powering down the Hub and switching it to night mode, Ianto waved goodnight to Rhys as he left through the cog wheel door. He went down the north stairs and turned right at the t-junction towards Miranda's rooms. When he got to her bedroom, he saw Jack sitting on a low ottoman that he'd moved into the bedroom from the lounge. Miranda's lifeless form was in the bed, unmoving. Jack had laid his head down on the edge of the bed, Miranda's hand was in his loosely. The silver framed wedding photograph of the two immortals was in his other hand. His shoulders rose and fell in a slow rhythm that told Ianto he was asleep. He was loathed to disturb his lover. Jack had only revived yesterday and even though the team had a rota for sitting with Miranda, Jack had scarcely left her side.

Ianto went back out into the lounge and took the small quilt off of the sofa. When he went back into the bedroom, he carefully draped the quilt over Jack. Just as he settled the quilt over Jack's shoulders, his lover woke and Ianto swore under his breath.

"Yan? What time is it?" Jack said blearily, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand.

"It's nearly eleven." Ianto laid his hand onto Jack's shoulder. "I'll take over for a bit, Jack."

"I'm fine," Jack said.

"You're exhausted, Cariad," Ianto said. "You haven't recovered fully yourself."

"I'm fine," he insisted.

"What would she say to you?" Ianto said, nodding towards Miranda's still form.

"She'd probably beat some sense into me," Jack said and then let out a half sob, half laugh as he squeezed Miranda's hand as tears ran down his cheeks. "I never thought I'd lose her like this."

"You haven't lost her, Cariad. She just needs time," Ianto said softly. He leaned down and picked up the picture frame that Jack had been holding in his other hand. "You two look really happy here."

"We were," Jack said, wiping tears from his face.

"How did you propose?" Ianto asked, trying to lighten the mood.

Jack let out another half sob, half laugh. "We'd driven down to Swansea for the day and went for a walk on Bracelet Bay."

Ianto smiled. "Sounds romantic."

"It was September."

"Or not!" Ianto exclaimed laughing, wondering what could possibly have possessed Jack to propose marriage on a frigid Welsh beach in September.

"She didn't think so either," Jack said with a sad chuckle. Ianto watched as Jack passed his thumb over the sapphire and diamond band on Miranda's right middle finger, their wedding band.

"Was that the engagement ring as well?" Ianto asked.

Jack kissed Miranda's hand and then laid it down on the blanket before he stood up. He went over to her dresser and started rummaging around in her jewelry box. He held out his hand to Ianto, a shy smile on his face. In the middle of his palm was a silver thimble. It had a delicate pinwheel design stamped into its surface. Ianto picked it up to read the engraving around the bottom half: _JH & WC to love and be loved._

"It's beautiful," Ianto said turning the thimble in his hands. "No engagement rings back in 1919?"

"There were engagement rings. Diamonds weren't popular back then but there were other stones."

"Why the thimble then?"

Jack shrugged. "I'd heard about the tradition. I thought it was a quaint idea."

"What did Mandy think of it?" Ianto said, handing the thimble back to him. He couldn't imagine a strong willed woman like Miranda demurely accepting such a blatant symbol of female domesticity.

"She loved it. She started making me these," Jack said, tugging his handkerchief from his trouser pocket and then put the thimble back where he'd found it. Jack's answer surprised him. It was another incongruous aspect to Miranda's personality for him to wonder at.

"Remind me to thank her for the hand washing," Ianto laughed. He was familiar with the handkerchiefs with Jack's initials beautifully hand embroidered in the corner, he washed them. Until now, Ianto hadn't known that Miranda was the source. He'd thought that Jack ordered them from somewhere.

Jack sat back down on the ottoman next to the bed, once again taking Miranda's cold hand into his own. He wiped more tears from his face. "I feel like I'm losing her all over again."

Ianto squeezed Jack's shoulder and decided to brave the storm. "She told me… about Greece."

"When?" Jack asked, his voice cracking slightly.

"I couldn't stand the thought of our bed without you. Mandy made me dinner and let me stay down here with her," Ianto said as he sat down on the edge of the bed. "I asked and she told me."

Jack sighed. "I'm sorry by the way, about how I acted."

"I wish you would've just talked to me, Cariad. I thought we were passed all that."

"We are, Yan. I'm sorry. I was angry. I wasn't thinking," Jack said as he reached out for Ianto's hand with his free one.

"From what she told me, she's the one who ought to be sorry," Ianto said, not bothering to hide his anger.

"She is. She keeps trying to make it up to me," Jack said, "and all I want her to do is just let it go."

"She said you forgave her but that she forgave you for something too. What was it?" Ianto asked gently.

"Torchwood," Jack said softly. "When we found each other again, I was angry. I was so angry I wrote those reports, the ones I showed you and Gwen before I asked Will to come back."

"You wrote those reports for Torchwood?" Ianto gasped. He had seen the reports. He thought they were merely to brief Torchwood agents on what Miranda was. Jack and Miranda were always so careful not to let anyone outside of Torchwood Three know about Miranda's immortality. The only exception was Her Majesty.

Jack nodded. The shame Ianto had seen so prominent on Miranda's face when she'd told him about Santorini, was now etched in Jack's own features. "Roger Colette and Audrey Mason were here at the time."

"Oh my God," Ianto gasped. He'd only read about the two Torchwood agents but their brutality knew no bounds. The two psychopaths worked in tandem together. Any alien life form that wasn't slaughtered, was experimented on. The pair were ruthless and viscious. Ianto had read several stomach churning reports detailing the vivisections that Colette and Mason had performed without anaesthetics.

"The two of them became obsessed with the idea of finding one of her kind or Will herself… and they did," Jack hung his head down. He added quickly at the horrified look on Ianto's face, "Not her. Someone else. They experimented on him for weeks before I was able to track Will down and get her to help me."

Ianto had seen the autopsy photographs of Colette and Mason's bodies. The official report said that the two Torchwood agents had followed a rogue Weevil down into the sewers and had been overwhelmed. Until now, Ianto had thought the photographs were consistent with the report but as pieces slotted together in Ianto's mind, he began to feel slightly sick.

"Colette and Mason weren't mauled by Weevils were they," Ianto said as he swallowed on a dry throat.

Jack shook his head. "No, they weren't. I falsified the reports."

"Did you kill them?" Ianto asked, not really sure he wanted to hear the answer but the question had come out before he could stop it.

"No, I didn't," Jack said, nodding towards the lifeless body in front of them, and Ianto heard a twinge of fear in Jack's voice. "She did."

Ianto swallowed again. He knew that both Jack and Miranda sometimes had to do monstrous things in the name of Torchwood to protect humanity. Once, he had watched on, helplessly, as Miranda had had no choice but to shoot a ten year old boy possessed by an alien consciousness. He'd never wondered how she was capable of such things because they'd always been in the name of protecting innocents and sometimes the ends justified the means. And while Colette and Mason certainly deserved to pay for their brutality, the savagery of their deaths turned Ianto's stomach. The photographs he'd seen of the two agent's bodies had been gruesome at best.

"She worked here for three years after that, combing through the archives looking for any evidence of her kind that Colette and Mason had left behind."

"She was thorough. I've never found anything. I didn't know about her kind until you showed me the files," Ianto said as he looked at Miranda's lifeless body. He dropped his voice to a near whisper, "Why didn't you stop her?"

"You've seen her when she's angry, Yan," Jack said and shuddered. "I hope you never see her enraged."

The two men fell into silence, gazing down at Miranda's unmoving form. Ianto slipped out of his suit jacket and laid it across the upholstered bench at the end of the bed and then unknotted his tie. He sat down on the floor at Jack's feet, his back against the bed, and began unbuttoning his shirt cuffs and rolling up his sleeves. He brought his knees up, clasped his hands together and rested his arms on them. He sat thinking about this new information. He shouldn't judge Miranda. She was from a different time, a harsher time. But still, he couldn't help but wonder what had happened to her to make her capable of such cruelty. He'd seen remorse in her eyes and had seen her struggle with some of the things Torchwood had forced her to do but yet she'd brutally tortured and then slaughtered Colette and Mason. He wondered if either of the immortals in his life would ever cease being a mystery.

"How did everything go at Ruby's earlier?" Jack asked.

"Fine, I gave her back everything and tried to explain the bowl best I could. She asked about you and Mandy," Ianto said.

"She's still mad isn't she?"

"No, Cariad, she isn't," Ianto said, shifting himself closer to Jack. He began rubbing his hands over top of Jack's legs in a soothing motion. "I arranged some time with her over the next week to take her to Max's house so she could go through his things and take whatever she wanted."

"It's against procedure, Yan," Jack said simply, a smile on his face.

"I know but we scanned pretty much everything when we were looking for that artefact, there's nothing alien left so there's no harm in letting her go through it all and it's giving her closure," Ianto lifted one of Jack's feet into his lap and started rubbing it gently. "Did you keep anything from Max's?"

"Just some pictures, and the chess board," Jack nodded. "I think Will has the go board."

"Never did much like go," Ianto said.

"Max didn't like it either and I'm terrible at it," Jack said and then chuckled. "Don't ever play Will."

"That good, eh?"

"And she's smug about it too. Probably been playing the game since it was invented."

After a nervous laugh, they fell into silence again, Ianto gently rubbing Jack's feet.

"Switch?" Jack said, standing up.

Ianto let Jack help him to his feet and then sat down on the low ottoman, flinching a little when he took Miranda's ice cold hand into his own. Jack settled onto the floor at Ianto's feet and started unlacing his shoes. Once he'd taken them off, he picked up one of Ianto's feet and started massaging it gently.

"Do you think there's someone we should call?" Ianto asked. "She must have other people who care about her besides us."

"I don't know of anyone," Jack said. He twisted at the waist and took Miranda's mobile off of the bedside table. He handed the phone to Ianto and he started sifting through Miranda's recent calls. After a few minutes, he shut down the phone and handed it back to Jack with a shake of his head. No one had called her but the team in the past month. It made him profoundly sad.

"Time was her and me in this room with a third person meant the start of a good night," Jack said with a strained laugh.

Ianto quirked an eyebrow at Jack and said, "I don't think this is what her fortune meant about a thrilling time ahead."

Jack furrowed his brow. "What?"

"Your favorite fortune cookie game. Mandy's fortune was 'There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead for you… in bed.'"

Jack threw his head back and laughed. "What was yours?"

Ianto's face grew serious and he laid Miranda's hand down on the blanket. He stood up and crossed over to his suit jacket. He dug around in the pocket for a bit before he found the tiny slip of paper. He handed it to Jack.

"'No distance is too far, if two hearts are tied together…'" Jack read. He looked up at Ianto and smiled. It was the smile that Jack reserved for Ianto and Ianto alone.

Jack stood up and the two men shared a tender kiss, then settled down together on the ottoman, cradling Miranda's hand in both of theirs. Jack wrapped his free arm around Ianto's shoulders and kissed the side of his lover's head as the two of them waited.


	17. Chapter 17

Gwen arrived early, at six in the morning, and sat with Miranda until lunch when Fish took over, staying with her until six at night when Rhys came in for a few hours after he got off work from Harwood's, bringing Jack and Ianto dinner. Jack and Ianto relieved Rhys at nine so he could go home to Gwen and then the two lovers split up the rest of the night. The team settled into this rhythm and two more days passed and Miranda had yet to revive. It had been five days since she'd been shot by the Nepanthian weapon and Jack was starting to lose hope.

Jack knocked on Miranda's bedroom door so as not to startle Rhys.

"Nine already?" Rhys asked, folding his magazine.

"Yep, Gwen asked me to tell you to bring home some milk," Jack said.

"Right-o, I'm off then," Rhys said, giving Jack's arm a playful tap with the rolled magazine.

"Night, Rhys," Jack said with a wave.

Once he heard the main door swing shut, he sighed and turned to Miranda's lifeless form. He scrubbed at his face with his hands, choking back tears. He sat down on the ottoman and picked up her cold hand.

"Hey, Will…" he said softly. "The Nepanthians sent us another cone. You should have seen Yan, he was livid they'd busted another hole in the Hub. The council just had the other one fixed. It wasn't easy for him to retcon the construction crew."

Jack chuckled a little under his breath and then sighed. "It was just another communication, some formal condolences for Ianto as my 'spouse' and a letter of thanks from the investigator's family for returning the body to them."

"Gwen wouldn't let up, kept asking if I'd finally made an honest man out of him. Kind of hard to get a CP when I don't exist," Jack said with a laugh. He dropped his voice and his tone became serious. "I've thought about it, you know… asking… but I don't think he'd say yes. I don't think he'd see the point of it. I can almost hear him telling me, 'Everything is fine, why change things?'"

"I talked to Ruby. She's doing better and I think she's forgiven us," he said smiling again. "Ianto's letting her go through Max's house, I think that helped. She wants you to sing at Max's funeral service so I need you to wake up. I can't lose you, Will. I can't."

Once again, he considered speaking with Miranda's Watcher, Kiernan Davies. At first, Jack had decided not to inform Kiernan about Miranda's current state nor enlist the Watcher's help but he was starting to lose hope. Ianto had told Jack everything Miranda had told him about the Watchers. There was a chance that the Watchers had information that could be use to help Miranda but Jack was too afraid of endangering her. He didn't want her to become an experiment or have news of her vulnerable state reach other immortals.

Ianto had mentioned possibly calling Miranda's solicitor for assistance, that perhaps the man could put them in contact with other immortals but Jack was opposed to the idea as well. They had no idea how much Miranda's solicitor knew or if the man was an immortal himself. Jack knew that Miranda had students, other immortals she had trained in the Game, but he had no idea how to contact them, if they could help or if Miranda would be safe from them. Jack felt uncertain and helpless, the crushing weight of it all was becoming too much for him.

"I can't do this alone, Will," Jack said softly, gripping her hand. "I've lost so many people and I'm going to lose everyone. Fish. Gwen and Rhys. Alice. Steven. Ianto…" his voice cracking over his lover's name.

"When Ianto… when he's… I'm going to need you," Jack whispered, his eyes shining with tears. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything. Please, don't leave me."

He stood up and let go of Miranda's hand. He bent over and brushed a lock of Miranda's hair behind her ear. As he brushed his fingertips down her cheek, he gasped as he watched Miranda's lips part and she drew in a wheezing breath.

"WILL!" Jack shouted at her. "WILL?! CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

Jack seized her wrist and felt the pulse there. He pressed his ear to her chest and heard her heart thumping out a dull lub dub.

He shouted at her again, resisting the urge to shake her. "WILL?!"

She drew in another slow raspy breath, the air rattling in her chest and didn't answer him. Jack didn't want to leave her but he didn't have his comm unit. He grabbed Miranda's mobile off the bedside table and dialed Ianto.

"Hello?" Ianto asked suspiciously.

"Ianto! It's me! I'm downstairs, she's breathing. I need you to get the medical supplies down here. Whatever you can think of! HURRY!"

Ianto didn't even reply. Jack heard the call disconnect and he knew that Ianto was sprinting into the autopsy bay for the supplies. It felt like an eternity as Jack waited, intermittently shouting Miranda's name and every alias he'd ever known her to use.

Ianto burst through the bedroom door carrying Miranda's portable medical case. Jack dragged the coat rack in from the lounge and hung the fluids from it as Ianto started the IV. Once the fluid started to drip, the two men stepped back and started examining the rest of the case's contents.

"I have no idea if I should give her anything," Ianto said, looking down at the multitude of medications.

Jack turned around and stood behind Ianto, looking over his shoulder at the case. He jumped as he felt something impact his leg. It was Miranda's hand. He looked at her face. Her eyes were open and she was blinking slowly.

"Will?" Jack shouted, grabbing her hand. "Can you hear me?"

"Mandy?" Ianto shouted as he circled the bed, reaching for her other hand.

Miranda blinked slowly. She tried to speak but the only sound she made was a dull wheeze.

"Yan, get an ice cube," Jack said.

Ianto laid Miranda's hand gently down on the blanket and then sprinted towards her kitchen and returned with the melting ice cube in his hand. He held it over Miranda's parted lips, moistening them and letting the water slowly drip into her mouth. The two men watched her swallow once and then twice as the cube slowly melted in Ianto's fingers. She continued to blink slowly. Her breath was ragged and shallow.

"Will? If you can hear me, blink once," Jack said.

The two men stared at Miranda's face and watched her blink once, slowly. Both men sighed with relief.

"Mandy? Are you in any pain? Once for yes, twice for no," Ianto said.

Again, they stared at her as they watched her blink once.

Ianto handed the melting ice cube over to Jack and bent down over Miranda's medical case. He located the morphine and he drew up a small amount, injecting it into the line.

"Mandy? I just gave you a milligram of morphine. Is the pain better?" he asked.

Two blinks.

Ianto turned away to inject more of the medication. When he was done he stood up and leaned back over Miranda.

"That's another milligram. I don't think you should have anymore," Ianto said. "Is the pain better?"

After blinking once, Miranda's eyes started to slide closed.

"Mandy! Don't fall asleep yet!" Ianto said loudly and Miranda's eyes snapped open again. "You're on intravenous fluids. I used point nine percent sodium chloride and five percent dextrose. Is okay?"

One blink.

Ianto nodded and then asked, "Do you want me to add potassium or anything else to the bag?"

Two blinks.

"Should we be giving you any other medications? Antibiotics? Other pain medicines?"

After two more blinks of her eyes, they slid closed, Miranda unable to stay awake any longer.

"I think she's asleep, Jack," Ianto said, his hand on his forehead. "I'm going to set up a constant drip of the morphine to keep her comfortable."

"How do you know how to do all this, Yan?" Jack asked as he smoothed back Miranda's hair.

"Lisa," he said simply. "The conversion unit kept her alive but she was in constant pain. I had to keep her on a lot of medications. Stay with her, Jack. I'm going to get some equipment from the autopsy bay."

Ianto squeezed Jack's arm before he left the room. Jack leaned down and pressed his lips to Miranda's forehead, tears of relief streaming down his face. "I love you. We'll take care of you. I promise."


	18. Chapter 18

Miranda was able to speak by morning but was still too weak to get out of bed. When Gwen and Fish arrived, the two jumped in enthusiastically to help care for her. By nightfall, they'd managed to get her sitting up and taking liquids. The next day Miranda was able to walk and stand on her own but was still weak and unsteady, eating only bland and light foods. At Ianto and Jack's insistence, the rest of the team had gone home. Gwen and Fish were more than happy to depart as their now vocal patient was becoming quite surly.

"I'm fine, Ifan. I don't need to be mollycoddled!" she snapped, shaking off Ianto's hand as he settled her into the chair at her dining table.

"You've been dead for more than five days, Mandy!" he said, settling the quilt from her sofa over her shoulders.

"Be that as it may, I am not some delicate flower," she said, tugging the quilt around her shoulders. "I am perfectly capable of walking from my bedroom to my lounge without assistance."

"You're still cold. You're shivering," Ianto said, turning towards her kitchen. "I'm going to make you some tea."

Jack strode through the door holding a bag aloft and said brightly, "Rhys dropped off some food."

"She's still cold," Ianto said. "I'm making her some tea."

"How's she doing?" Jack asked.

"'She' is still in the room, gentlemen," Miranda snapped.

Jack chuckled as he crossed the room and kissed the top of Miranda's head. "Love you."

"You too, Jack," Miranda said with a small smile. The two of them never hid their affection from others, often sharing small kisses, touches or words but the immortal man had been positively saccharine lately.

Miranda greatly appreciated the care and attention everyone had given her over the passed five days but they were all starting to smother her. The four other team members had been hovering over her all day and she was glad that Fish and Gwen had gone home and that Rhys hadn't lingered.

The two men busied themselves with heating and portioning out the food while Miranda watched on, a slight smile playing over her face.

Ianto put down the mug of tea in front of her and gave her a curious look, "What?"

"Nothing, Ifan," she said as she sipped her tea, its warmth welcome.

Jack took the bowl of soup out of the microwave and set it down in front of her. "Chicken soup for you, Will."

"Cawl for us," Ianto said brightly as he dropped the two bowls down onto the table.

"You boys sure know how to show a girl a good time," Miranda said with a laugh as she picked up her spoon.

Ianto was still laying his napkin over his lap when Jack dug into his food with gusto.

"Think we can get Rhys to cook for us more often?" he asked around a mouthful of food.

"Could your table manners get any more atrocious?" Ianto asked with an eye roll.

Miranda sat back, sipping her soup and watching the two men. Ianto pulled Jack's sleeve up so it wouldn't end up in his food. Jack stole a piece of potato from Ianto's bowl and received half hearted slap on the hand. Jack kissed away a bit of sauce from the corner of Ianto's mouth. The small displays of love warmed her heart more so than the hot tea and soup. She was glad to see that they had moved passed whatever disagreement they had had before Jack had been taken by the Nepanthians.

Ianto was looking at her suspiciously. "You have to eat more of your soup, Mandy."

"Yes, Tad," Miranda said with an eye roll and tucked back into her food. Just as she scraped the last of the soup from the bowl, her mobile started to ring in the bedroom.

"Excuse me," she said, wiping her mouth and moving to get up from the table when Ianto put his hand on her arm.

"I'll get it, you stay put," he said firmly as he darted into the bedroom to get the mobile before it stopped ringing. When he returned, the phone was quiet.

"Sorry, didn't get it in time," he said handing her the phone and then moved into the kitchen. "Who's for ice cream?"

"Oh! Me!" Jack said. "What flavor?"

Ianto opened the freezer and tilted the cardboard container towards him and said, "Chocolate."

"There should be a container of vanilla in there somewhere, Ifan," Miranda said, knowing it was Jack's preference. She started to scroll through her phone's missed call list.

"Got it," Ianto said. He took the ice cream containers out of the freezer and started to scoop it into mugs.

Ianto sat back down at the table and distributed the mugs of ice cream, vanilla for Jack, chocolate for Miranda and a mix of the two for himself.

Jack leaned over his mug and frowned. "No sprinkles?"

"Who was it who called, Mandy?" Ianto asked after he rolled his eyes at Jack.

"A former student of mine," she said as locked the phone. She'd listen to the voice message later. "He was planning on visiting for a short holiday."

Jack snapped his fingers and said, "I knew I forgot something."

He started to dig into his waistcoat. He took out a printed brochure and plopped it down in front of Ianto.

"Cassis?" Ianto asked.

"Is that okay? You said you wanted to go on holiday?" Jack asked, sounding so much like a small boy looking for approval.

"Anywhere with you is fine," Ianto said, taking Jack's hand in his.

Jack smiled broadly. The two lovers both sat there, gazing into each other's eyes. They seemed completely oblivious to Miranda's presence and she stayed perfectly still, not daring to move for fear of disrupting them. After a long moment, Ianto broke the look, leaning in to kiss Jack and then feed him a bit of ice cream from his mug.

Ianto asked, "Who is this student of yours?"

"Former student," she said. "Another immortal, someone I taught the Game and the sword."

"We were wondering if there was someone like that you'd want us to call when you were… sick," Jack said.

"You have my solicitor's number in London, Jack," she said.

"That's not what he means, Mandy. Your friends. People who care about you," Ianto said.

Miranda considered for a moment. "There are a few, perhaps."

"Give me the numbers, Will. I'll put them in your file," Jack said.

"I'd rather not handle it like that, Jack," Miranda said.

"Then give them to Ianto somehow," Jack said.

"Just call my solicitor, Jack. I'll leave instructions with him for Torchwood situations. His family has handled my affairs for generations," she said. "There really isn't anyone, aside from you two, Gwen and Fish."

Ianto licked his spoon and said, "Speaking of Fish, what have you been saying to him, Jack?"

Jack shifted in his chair. The nervous gesture wasn't lost on Miranda or Ianto, they knew the man too well. He tried to sound overly innocent when he asked, "What do you mean, Yan?"

"He was asking me if I'd ever been to Wow," Ianto said, "and what sort of music they played there."

Miranda choked a little on her ice cream and coughed as Jack thumped her on the back. When she'd recovered enough to speak, she asked, "Isn't that the gay club up by the city centre?"

"Yup," Ianto said, popping the 'p' a little.

"What makes you think I had something to do with that?" Jack asked.

Ianto and Miranda both raised their eyebrows at Jack and merely stared at him.

"As if!" Jack said. "I didn't say anything to him. You think it's my plan to turn everyone around me gay?"

"Modern labels," Ianto deadpanned.

"Quaint little categories," Miranda said flatly.

"Back off you two, geez," Jack said but the two of them continued to stare him down and he crumbled under the scrutiny of his lover and his ex-wife. "Okay, I may have said something to him a few days ago about him being a little twentieth century."

Ianto and Miranda raised their eyebrows at him again, staring at him.

"It's just slipped out. I got on a bit of a fifty first century soap box, all right?" Jack said, defensively.

"Classy, Jack," Miranda said as she ate another spoonful of ice cream.

"I'm sorry okay? At least he's expanding his horizons," Jack said.

"That club is a meat market," Ianto said with an eye roll.

"Hey I did offer, he said no. Maybe he'd be more comfortable with you," Jack said with a shrug. He was about to speak again but his vortex manipulator beeped. "Rift alert."

Ianto started to rise for his chair but Jack laid waved him back down.

"It's small," he said. "You stay here with Will. I'm just going to run upstairs and take a look."

Ianto nodded and sat back down in his chair as Jack took his mug of ice cream with him up to the Hub. He quirked an eyebrow at Miranda's expression of disbelief and annoyance when he looked back at her.

"He doesn't understand, Mandy. You know that," Ianto said.

"Talk to him, Ifan," Miranda said. "Fish is a man of absolutes, zeroes and ones, reactants and products, gay and straight. The idea of fluid sexuality? That concept won't sit well with him."

Jack returned from upstairs and Ianto started to stand but Jack waved him back down.

"It's nothing, a small quiver in the rift energy," he said as he started to clear the dirty dishes away from the table.

Once the dishes were in the dishwasher, Jack came back over to Miranda and put his hand under her arm.

"Let's get you back into bed," he said.

"I've stayed in bed long enough, thank you," she said, getting up unassisted. She walked across the room, waving off the their attempts to help her to the sofa.

Jack sat down next to her, lifting her legs into his lap and Ianto sat in the small armchair.

"The burial is tomorrow," Jack said, sadly. "The Church of St. Andrew and St. Teilo up by the university. Ruby wanted you to sing at the service but I told her you were under the weather."

"Nonsense, Jack. I'm well enough to sing at a funeral," she protested.

"It's not safe for you," he said sharply.

Miranda had made progress in her recovery but was still weak and in no shape to defend herself against a challenger.

"It's holy ground," she said.

"She's right, Cariad. She'll be fine," Ianto said. "We'll be with her the whole time."

With that Jack relented knowing it was an argument already lost. The three of them sat together, falling into comfortable conversation. Ianto enjoyed nights like these when Miranda and Jack reminisced about their shared past. As the archivist, Ianto knew a lot about Torchwood's history. He could tell you who had served and when. He could spout any number of facts and figures about Torchwood but through Miranda and Jack, that history came alive.

"Remember when that Fuligo pod came through?" Jack said laughing.

Miranda shot Jack a stern look. "You're a right bastard, Jack Harkness! You could have warned me."

Jack threw his head back and laughed but Ianto scrunched his face in confusion.

"Fuligo pod?" he asked.

"Back in '02, Will and I were checking out this spike over in Splott. It was on the bonnet of a parked car, the pod. It looks sort of like a watermelon, stood up on end with a pink flower on the top," Jack said.

"Except it's a sort of mottled brownish orange instead of green," Miranda said with a shake of her head.

"They're grown on Fuligo II for their pulp. Tasty stuff," Jack said. "The inside is like passion fruit, gloppy and seedy."

Ianto tried to smother a grin. He could almost see where this was going.

"This sod," Miranda said as she kicked Jack in the thigh with her foot, "doesn't warn me that they're harvested by picking them up at the base or the sides. He tells me to prod the flower on top."

"Which triggers the plant's defense mechanism," Jack said, his shoulders shaking from trying to contain his laughter.

"And the bloody thing exploded, spraying me with the pulp," Miranda said, kicking Jack in the thigh again and Ianto roared with laughter.

"Ow!" Jack said, massaging his leg.

"It's not funny. I was washing that shite out of my hair for hours! It ruined my favorite coat!"

Both men started to laugh at the indignant look on Miranda's face and Ianto didn't miss the yawn she failed to stifle.

"Bed, now," Ianto said, his voice stern and serious.

"Yes, Tad," Miranda said with an eye roll.


	19. Chapter 19

It was a warm and sunny day, with a cool breeze. A small group of mourners were gathered around the coffin of Max Evans which was laid out next to the freshly dug grave. Stands of flowers were arranged around the coffin and a beautiful splay of lilies adorned the lid. Miranda and Jack had been true to their word. They had ignored the Torchwood protocols that dictated Max should be interred in a morgue draw at the Hub. Miranda had released Max's body to a local funeral home for burial preparation and Jack had paid for everything. Ianto had played his own part as well, retconning the staff at the funeral home.

The entire Torchwood team was in attendance. None of them had known Max well, but they were all there in support of Jack, crowded around him protectively. In a rare display of affection, Ianto had Jack's hand tightly clasped in his own.

The Vicar stepped forward, his prayer book in hand. He cleared his throat and spoke, "We have come here today to remember, before God, our brother, Max Evans, to give thanks for his life, to commend him to our merciful redeemer and judge, to commit his body to the ground and to comfort one another in our grief. Almighty God, you judge us with infinite mercy and justice and love everything you have made. In your mercy, turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life, and the sorrow of parting into the joy of heaven, through our saviour, Jesus Christ."

"Amen," they all replied.

"'Jesus said, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.'" the Vicar said. "Max's family has invited his friend, Jack, to speak on his behalf."

Ianto reluctantly let go of Jack's hand as Jack stepped away from their protective group. He crossed over to Ruby, hugging her and then her son, Ben. He stepped back towards the coffin. His eyes were red rimmed and swollen, his greatcoat flapping in the warm breeze.

"It's hard for me to talk about Max. After he was gone, I found out that I didn't know him as well as I thought I did," Jack said, drawing in a shaky breath.

"It made me sad and it made me a little bit angry too. But then I realised, I know everything about Max that I needed to know," Jack said, tears shining in his eyes.

"I know I'd never beat him at chess. I know he hated yellow food. Mustard. Hey? It's dangerous stuff," Jack said to ripples of laughter. "I know he had a horrible sense of direction. I know he collected mugs and disposable pens. I know he always wanted a koi pond but couldn't stand the idea of keeping fish captive."

Jack hung his head down and wiped tears from his eyes. He failed to stifle the sob that broke from him. Without turning around, he reached back behind him, holding out his hand and Ianto immediately rushed forward to take it. He stood behind Jack and rested a comforting hand on his lover's shoulder.

Jack's voice shook as he spoke. "I know he loved his daughter. I know he loved his grandson. I know he was a good man with a good heart. I know he was my friend. And I know that I will miss him."


End file.
